Europe’s recycled aluminium industry is an important component of the global secondary aluminium supply chain, with Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (UK) representing key national markets. Production across the European region stood at nearly 6 million tonnes in 2023, supported by established scrap recovery systems, industrial recycling capacity and demand for recycled metal. Russia also contributes to the regional landscape through secondary aluminium production units concentrated in several industrial centres. According to AL Circle’s analysis in its report, “ World Recycled ALuminium Market Analysis Industry Forecast ”, the four countries present different market structures, from Germany’s substantial recycling capacity and Italy’s scrap-based production to the UK’s organised...
According to SMM survey statistics, the operating rate of the secondary aluminium alloy industry in September was 35.0 per cent, up 3.1 percentage points M-o-M but down 6.7 percentage points Y-o-Y. Industry production continued its recovery trend, but the overall operating level remained below the same period last year. On the demand side, September marked the traditional peak consumption season, with downstream orders recovering from August. End-use demand from automobiles and other sectors improved marginally, but the peak season effect has yet to fully materialise. According to CAAM data, automobile production in September was 2.99 million units, up 11.4 per cent M-o-M but down 8.7 per cent Y-o-Y. NEV production was 1.814 million units, up 12.2 per cent Y-o-Y. CAAM noted that China's...
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The city of Barstow will soon receive the promised aluminium remelt and casting house although in a much smaller scale, a city official revealed last week. Last March a megaproject was approved by the City Council, with a manufacturing complex of 3 million square-feet, costing $1.5 billion and the potential to employ more than 2,000 people. The project had to be dismissed because the high electricity costs in California would not allow the plant to run economically. The new project with a 500,000 square-feet manufacturing unit and employing roughly 450 people would cost a little over $120 million and will not be affected by the high electricity costs due to its comparatively smaller size. A new company named Mojave Aluminium Company will be responsible for developing the project, in the...
To further strengthen its activities in aluminium recycling, Hydro have acquired WMR Recycling GmbH (WMR) in Dormagen, Germany, from Kural GmbH and Kurth Grundstücksverwaltungs UG. Following the transaction, Hydro will own the most advanced aluminium scrap sorting technology in the world. The agreement was signed on Friday, February 27. Subject to regulatory approval from competition authorities, the deal is expected to close by the beginning of April this year. Patented technology “The scrap-sorting technology in the WMR plant is the most advanced in the world, and we will now hold the patented rights to this technology,” says Roland Scharf-Bergmann, head of Recycling in Hydro’s Primary Metal business area. Utilizing x-ray transmission and several other sorting technology elements, the...
Aleris announced today that it has completed the sale of its Recycling and Specification Alloys businesses to an affiliate of Signature Group Holdings for an aggregate of $500 million in cash and $25 million in Signature preferred stock. The sale, which was announced in October, includes 18 production facilities in North America and six in Europe that offer a wide range of metal recycling services and specification alloy products. "The sale of the recycling and specification alloys businesses will allow us to place a stronger focus on aluminum rolled products, ensuring that we are poised to capture the benefit of strong projected growth in a variety of industries including automotive, aerospace, and U.S. building and construction," Steve Demetriou, Aleris chairman and CEO said. "The...
Over 5,000kg of aluminium cans were collected on Thursday at the yearly nation-wide can collection drive organised by the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG). Participants included more than 200 entities from across the UAE. Government entities, private corporations, academic institutions, individuals and families came together to collect empty beverage cans. The day saw a total collection of 5,030kg of aluminium cans, and with an aim of 27,000kg for this year, EEG encourages residents of the UAE to keep collecting cans to recycle with EEG till the end of the year. Habiba Al Marashi, Chairperson of the Emirates Environmental Group, said the target of 27,000kg of aluminium cans will be a breakthrough for the UAE in terms community-based recycling. Marashi said aluminium cans are materials...
Aluminium futures edged higher by 0.23% to INR 111 per kg today after speculators enlarged positions amid pick-up in demand at spot markets. Furthermore, a firming trend in metal at the London Metal Exchange (LME) on fall in its inventories supported the upside. At the Multi Commodity Exchange, aluminium for delivery in February rose 25 paise, or 0.23%, to INR 111 per kg, with a business turnover of 184 lots. The metal for delivery in March also gained 20 paise, or 0.18%, to trade at INR 111.95 per kg in a turnover of 13 lots. Marketmen said a firm trend in the metal at spot markets on increased demand from consuming industries and firming trend at the LME influenced aluminium prices at futures trade here. In the international market, aluminium rose as much as 0.5%, the first gain in four...
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States throws 14.8 million tons of scrap metal into landfills every year. One of the main reasons is the difficulty of large-scale separation of non-ferrous metals. Scientists at the University of Utah now say they have solved that problem. Recycling metals is much cheaper than extracting them from the ore. But chopping up old cars, appliances or industrial equipment results in a mixture of different metal parts. Iron and steel are easily separated with strong magnets, while others, such as copper, aluminum and titanium, either end up in landfills or are shipped to countries with cheap labor to pick out the different metal by hand. Researchers at the University of Utah now say they have developed a method for mechanically...
On the occasion of the 13th International Aluminium Recycling Congress, the European aluminium industry reaffirmed its ambition for a long-lasting circular economy, expressing high expectations for a new and improved waste proposal from the European Commission later this year. Speaking at the Congress, Chair of the EAA’s Recycling Division Roberta Niboli commented “In Europe and across the globe, we are faced with increasingly limited resources and the environmental and economic challenges that arise as a result. By taking concrete steps to promote resource efficiency in Europe and new models to guarantee a closed recycling loop, we can secure a steady supply of recyclable material to society, reduce our dependence on foreign imports and turn waste into new, innovative products over and...
HULAMIN based in South Africa’s Pietermaritzburg announced on Monday that they are planning to invest R300 million to construct an aluminium recycling plant that will convert aluminium beverage cans and convert them into raw materials for reuse. Considering that recycling aluminium scarp takes a fraction of the energy needed to smelt the primary metal, the local market will get recycled aluminium via gas-fired furnaces. The company reported a 96% increase in headline earnings per share according to the results for December 2014 results. The amount being invested for the recycling plants is mostly sources out of the five-year R270 loan acquired from Nedbank. Hulamin says their plans for 2015 include continued focus on core competencies and product streams. "Our efforts to simplify the...
Starting with customs duties paid for inbound scrap, metals recyclers and producers in India say their industry cannot gain momentum or even operate profitably until the government reconsiders its policies. Throughout two days of programming at the 2015 Metal Recycling Association of India (MRAI) International Conference, held in Mumbai in February, speakers and audience members returned regularly to the topic of India’s tax structure. “India is the only country in the world where there is an export duty on scrap and an import duty on scrap,” stated MRAI President Ikbal Nathani of Mumbai-based Nathani Industrial Services. Nathani, a ferrous scrap trader, pointed to a flood of low-priced steel billets pouring into India as a symptom of the import duty on scrap. “Now China is dumping...
The Dutch firm ARN Auto Recycling has been awarded the ISO 9001 certification following an audit conducted by the Dutch certifying body KIWA. ARN notes that complying with the internationally recognized standard demonstrates that it has its internal processes and the quality of its management systems up to all standards. “This helps us show that ARN as an organization is still moving forwards. We constantly strive to improve and ensure that all our staff remain involved in that process. ISO 9001 will help us to soundly control our business processes, which is extremely important to our service provision and transparency,” says Aarnout van Duuren, manager at ARN Auto Recycling. ARN Auto Recycling placed ISO 9001 certification on its agenda February 2014, and the company took its first...
A Los Angeles-area recycling business will pay $1.8 million in restitution to the state’s Beverage Container Recycling Program as part of a settlement agreement resulting from illegal claims for refunds on out-of-state bottles and cans. As part of the agreement with the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), Action Sales and Metal, Inc. and owner Bruce Falk will be barred from future participation in the program. CalRecycle received $845,000 of the settlement last week, when the agreement was signed; the outstanding $955,000, seized from the business by law enforcement during two separate investigations, will be released to CalRecycle within 30 days. The settlement comes on the heels of an investigation by CalRecycle, the California Department of Justice, and the Los...
When it comes to keeping Cheltenham tidy and helping to save the planet, a group of green-minded enthusiasts say there is a lot you Cando. One of the town’s environmental groups, Vision 21, has collected and recycled a staggering 100kg worth of aluminium cans in the past 12 months. On the basis that each weighs 10g, that is the equivalent of 10,000 cans. They have all been picked up by the group’s volunteers in Cheltenham, either on foot or using a three-wheel bike with a large box on the front to keep the cans in. The volunteers are part of Vision 21’s Reclaim project, which focuses on recycling furniture and repairing bicycles. Spokesman Dave Entwhistle said he was keen for people to know about the work of the volunteers and said he was prompted to contact the Echo after reading our...
The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has released an educational video entitled The Shredder Story: A Revolution in Recycling. This thirteen-and-a-half-minute video shows viewers how industrial shredders work and details the impact they have made in the recycling industry. “Scrap recycling is the first link in the manufacturing supply chain providing 130 million net tons of feedstock for manufacturers, steel mills, foundries, and refiners around the world each year,” said ISRI President Robin Wiener. “Today’s shredder is one of the industry’s most important tools, allowing our industry to lead the way in the conservation of natural resources, the reduction of energy consumption and the prevention of valuable materials from entering the waste stream.” The video’s messaging...
Each year more vehicles pop up on roads in India and a growing number of them are produced domestically. This trend provided a reason for optimism within the Indian nonferrous metals sector, according to presenters at the 2015 Metal Recycling Association of India (MRAI) International Conference, held in Mumbai in February. Mohan Agarwal of Haryana, India-based Century Metal Recycling Pvt. Ltd. told MRAI attendees that India has risen to become the seventh largest automaker globally and the second largest producer of two-wheeled vehicles (motor scooters and motorcycles). With the motor vehicle industry as a major customer, Century Metal Recycling has grown in just nine years to operate seven secondary aluminum and zinc alloys plants in India with a combined 225,000 metric tons of annual...
The head of magnetic separation and detection firm Eriez is to deliver a paper at the 15th International Automobile Recycling Congress. President and chief executive Tim Shuttleworth will present Profitability Clearing the Chinese ‘Green Fence’ at the event in Germany. It will focus on Eriez’ technology to increase purity levels while maintaining total metals recovery. “Chinese import regulations were boosted with the so-called ‘Green Fence’ initiative in 2013 wherein the Chinese set an upper limit of two percent waste in the metal commodities being imported. Without the right process, this level of purity can lead to lowered total recovery and loss of valuable metals,” said Mr Shuttleworth. “Eriez decided to apply a well-known processing technique from the world of mineral processing to...
It would seem foolish to predict anything but a fall in Indian scrap prices in line with the global trend in February. According to TSI, market participants are predicting a downward movement of around $10-15 a ton in the immediate future as the scrap industry cannot continue to play second fiddle to semi-finished material from Russia and China. If this correction occurs it seems likely that the market will remain depressed with only the Indian budget and its potential increase in duties for semi-finished products, to be unveiled this month, offering a potential catalyst for recovery.
A new technology is being developed by Saperatec Industries of Czech Republic and Saperatec of Germany, a recycling technology supplier that will allow the separation of multi-layer packaging material. The two entities together is planning to build and operate facilities across Europe that will enable recycling of the multilayer packaging materials like plastics and aluminium laminates used in beverage cartons breaking them down to reusable raw materials. Both the companies together are making a double-digit million Euro investment but it is understood that this venture is expected to be beneficial as it will help them secure the international market entry, Tomáš Sysel, chairman of the board of directors at Saperatec Industries is optimistic about the partnership saying that this venture...
Nespresso has launched its first programme to recycle its used aluminium capsules in South Africa. The programme will allow Nespresso Club Members and South African coffee drinkers to return used Nespresso capsules for recycling at dedicated collection points at Nespresso Boutiques in South Africa. “Nespresso is committed to continuously improving its environmental performance across its value chain," said Pierre Debayle, Regional Manager, Nespresso MEAC. Nespresso says it uses aluminium for its Grand Cru capsules as it is the best material available today to protect and preserve the highest quality coffees against factors such as oxygen, light and humidity which could compromise freshness, taste and quality. Aluminium is also the only material that interacts with Nespresso machines to...
