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...
Grow with
AL Circle
The Pollution Control Department (PCD) Office's 16th Division and the related agencies are inviting the public to donate aluminum materials to be processed into prostheses for persons with disabilities. The 16th Division of the PCD Office and the Provincial Natural Resources and Environment Offices of Songkhla, Pattalung, Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat, has launched the aluminum material recalling scheme. The aluminum received in this scheme will then be transformed into the royally bestowed prostheses in order to reduce the aluminum waste. The public can donate aluminum materials to the Prostheses Foundation of H.R.H The Princess Mother. The Foundation will then process the aluminum into leg prostheses and canes for persons with disabilities and elders. Aluminum materials can be donated...
As the LME aluminium prices fall and the buying activity lessens among the primary metal companies, the UK pure-grade aluminium scrap prices were also seen falling on Wednesday January 7. Commercial pure cutting which was £1,100-1,160 per tonne previously, fell to £1,020-1,100 per tonne. In the other two categories, that is, the group 1 99% & litho and clean HE9 extrusions, there was a dip noticed with prices slipping to £1,200-£1,260 from £1,230-1,280. Trade was also low across the three bands as only a handful of deals were finalized. The prices for the pure-grade scarp had risen quite strongly late last year as many primary producers turned to recycled metal for feedstock and the scrap suppliers reported large shipments to top aluminium producers like Norsk Hydro, Novelis and Sapa....
New South Wales is getting ready to adopt the container deposit scheme aping South Australia which offers people some monetary returns for recycling bottles and aluminium cans. NSW Premier Mike Baird and State Environment Minister Rob Stokes had sent out a letter addressed to the National Packaging Industry Authority (NPCIA) stating the government’s intention of adopting new ways to achieve recycling and litter reduction targets. Coca-Cola Amatil confirms having received such a letter on New Year’s Eve. A reverse vending machine is one of the options where people can feed aluminium cans, glass and plastic bottles and in return they will get rewards. The City of Sydney Council has put up two vending machines at two points, one at Circular Quay and one at Dixon Street mall, Haymarket which...
Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, Owego, New York, has announced plans to build a heavy media plant at its Owego facility. The company says it initially looked at locating the media plant in western Pennsylvania but opted to build it at its shredder facility in Owego. Adam Weitsman, CEO of Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, says that while the company was strongly considering building the $15 million state-of-the-art heavy media plant in western Pennsylvania “as the state and local municipalities rolled out the red carpet to us to have the project located there,” recent economic bad news in the Southern Tier region of New York resulted in Upstate Shredding deciding to locate the plant in Owego. “We could not in good faith create jobs outside of the region instead of building...
Andritz MeWa of Germany is in the process of 'fully re-engineering' its first recycling machines, such as its flexible UG granulators which have been fitted with a pendulum-type compactor that is said to feed the material to the cutter much more efficiently and with less risk of faults, thus providing more uniform and higher throughput. The UG series comprises the UG 600, UG 1000, UG 1600 and UG 2000 granulators and is built to size-reduce everything from e-scrap and oil filters to plastics and aluminium. The design is claimed to reduce wear as a result of less strain on the cutter and blades. Some of the machines in the 1600 and 2000 size range have already been fitted with pendulum pushers over recent years. 'The results obtained in operation were highly satisfactory so now this...
In South Derbyshire District the Council has introduced a new campaign called ‘leave your cap on’ to better facilitate recycling in the region. As per the new scheme, the public is urged to leave the cap on for glass bottles like that of wine, spirits and cooking ingredients so that the cap goes for recycling along with its bottles. It also applies for aluminium screw tops for jars. The chairman of environmental and development services at South Derbyshire District Council, Councillor Peter Watson says that when the caps are attached with their original bottles, they are easier to recover thanks to the modern recycling methods. This means that the countless metal bottle caps that get lost in the trash can now be reused over and over again through recycling. The new scheme just requires...
Conner Samuels, senior director of security operations investigations, policy and threat management at Time Warner Cable, and Sergeant Todd Powell of the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Metal Theft Unit in Maryland, have recently been named to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries’ (ISRI) Law Enforcement Advisory Council (LEAC). The Council is a select group of experienced law enforcement officers, prosecutors and security personnel with an understanding of the metals theft issue. Based on its expertise, LEAC advises ISRI on ways to assist law enforcement and the resources it can provide to address the problem of metals theft. “Since it was formed nearly a year ago, the members of ISRI’s Law Enforcement Advisory Council have provided the industry with useful, valuable...
Aleris released its first corporate sustainability report, covering the company's progress on its sustainability journey between 2011 and 2013. The report highlights Aleris' approach to sustainability, including improving the sustainability of its customers, reducing its environmental footprint, and continuing to increase the use of recycled content in its products. "This first sustainability report is a milestone for Aleris, and an opportunity to highlight the progress that has been made over the last few years," Steve Demetriou, Aleris chairman and CEO said. "Sustainability is a key business platform that helps us manage our global operations responsibly and support the sustainability of our customers. While we have work to do, we've made great progress in establishing the baseline that...
The Ford F-150 has created a buzz in the auto industry for the daring use of aluminium in their most popular vehicle. Although the move was primarily to improve fuel efficiency of the vehicle with the lightweight body, it will also have a positive impact in recycling. The pick-up tuck is the most talked about vehicle to hit the road in recent times as Ford has gone to great lengths to create and introduce the car to the public. A lot of investment has gone into the project that holds a fair amount of risk. However, there are signs that the F-150 is worth the effort. For starters, by the time the new truck exits the factory and hits the showroom, there will be $300 worth scrap left behind in the factory. Aluminium, being a highly recyclable metal, can be implemented into a “closed loop”...
Aluminum cans, already the most recycled and recyclable beverage container on the market, just got even more sustainable according to a report by environmental research firm PE International. The report, which updates a prior life cycle assessment study released in 2010, shows that an aluminum can made in the U.S. and Canada today: • Has improved its carbon footprint by 20 percent and requires 14 percent less energy to manufacture. • Contains 70 percent recycled content on average in every can produced in the US, at least three times U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates of the recycled content in glass (23 percent) and plastic/PET (3 percent) bottles.[i] • Is 2 percent lighter (13.34 grams --> 13.04 grams)[ii], and remains the lightest beverage package option available. Less...
Some 60% of local authorities are now collecting beverage cartons for recycling from kerbside, according to the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) UK. The figure shows a leap from levels in 2006, when only 4% of local authorities took part in kerbside schemes. If bring bank schemes are included, a total of 91% of local authorities collect cartons for recycling. The 60% mark was reached after the Norfolk Waste Partnership joined the programme. It launched a new recycling scheme for residents on 1 October 2014. Norfolk Waste Partnership technical adviser Adrian Akester said the scheme would help the partnership meet a target of increase recycling by 5-10%. ACE UK chief executive Richard Hands said the organisation’s “re:cartons” campaign was launched to provide...
Vulcanis has designed and built a new recycling plant to receive and recover steel and aluminium cans in Barking, UK, and purchased a Cross Belt Overband Magnet for steel can recovery from Bunting Magnetics Europe Ltd. Presently, consumers in the UK use approximately 13 billion steel cans and 50 billion aluminium cans per annum and recycling rates are 61% for steel (Tata 2014) and 57% for aluminium (Alupro 2014). For steel in particular, the UK government has set a target of 76% recovery by 2017 and to achieve this objective more recycling plants and initiatives are needed across the UK. The inspiration for the new plant came from Vulcanis Managing Director, Mena Ramsis. He explained, “I was not involved in the recycling industry and only became interested when I was attending a wedding...
Researchers have devised a way to use microwaves to turn aluminium-laminated plastic waste into aluminium for smelting and hydrocarbons for fuel in just three minutes. It started with a bacon roll and a microwave oven, and now it's poised to transform the recycling of a packaging material that has been as unrecyclable as it is useful. The bacon roll, as the story goes, was microwaved for so long it turned into a charred mass of carbon that began to glow red-hot. What was happening was an intense heating process called microwave-induced pyrolysis. On hearing about the 'over-microwaved' bacon roll from an acquaintance, chemical engineers Howard Chase and Carlos Ludlow-Palafox from the University of Cambridge wondered whether the process could be exploited to recover useful materials from...
Recycling is gradually becoming part of the way of life in Ivory Coast. It is already common practice to sort plastic bottles and now beverage can recycling has made its appearance. Yehni Djidji, an Ivorian blogger, tells us more. Once the beverage cans have been melted down, they can be used to produce kitchen utensils for daily use such as pots and pans, ladles, strainers and ovens. It must however be noted that not every type of can is suitable for this type of recycling. There are two types of cans: 100% aluminium cans and heavier, steel-and-aluminium cans. The aluminium cans are the ones which, at present, are sought by foundries. Hélène B., who is familiar with recycling, explains: "Generally the type of cans which are recycled are beer cans. They really are 100 % aluminium. You...
The introduction of end-of-waste (EoW) for scrap from iron and steel, aluminium and aluminium alloys has had only positive effects on the market and the environment, according to a major new study from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) on “Monitoring impacts from Council Regulation (EU) No 333/2011: End-of-waste criteria for Al/Fe scrap”. Researchers found that it has not caused the disruption to markets and the dramatic increase in EU scrap exports that some had feared. Three years ago, Council Regulation 333/2011 established criteria by which this scrap could cease to be regulated as waste in the EU. The JRC study examined the impacts of the regulation on scrap availability, trade flows, prices and administrative requirements, as well as on the environment and human...
The scrap metal company Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, headquartered in Owego, New York, has acquired the assets of Murtagh Scrap Handling, a scrap metal recycling company in Rome, New York. The acquisition is expected to be finalized by January 2015, according to Upstate Shredding. Murtagh, which has been a family owned business for more than 25 years, will be renamed Ben Weitsman of Rome. Upstate Shredding says the acquired scrap yard is in an area where the company does not have a significant presence currently. “This is a very strategic move for the company as we continue to expand throughout the Northeast,” Adam Weitsman, CEO of Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling . “We will be investing a lot of money into this location to bring the scrap yard to the high standards that...
The North American Aluminum scrap prices declined on ScrapMonster Price Index as on December 2nd, Tuesday. 1100 Scrap prices declined by $0.01 per Lb. The prices of 3003 Scrap too fell $0.01 per Lb. A down move of $0.01 per Lb was witnessed in 356 Aluminum Wheels, 5052 Scrap, 6061 Extrusions, 6063 Extrusions and 6063 Extrusions/Fe. The prices of Al/Cu Radiators and Al/Cu Radiators/Fe remained unchanged. Aluminum Radiators and Aluminum Radiators/Fe prices went down $0.01 per Lb each. Aluminum Transformers and Breakage 50% Recovery prices too declined marginally by $0.01 per Lb each on 2nd December. Chrome Wheels, E.C Aluminum Wire, Litho Sheets and Mixed Aluminum Turnings prices dropped by $0.01 per Lb. The prices of MLC Clips, Old Cast and Old Aluminum Sheet declined by $0.01 per Lb....
Nespresso, the popular at-home espresso machine brand, has been taking back used pods for recycling for a year now at its Abu Dhabi and Dubai stores. However, the French artist Florence Vial, who spent four years living in the UAE before returning home, explained that making a comment on recycling was only part of her motivation in creating the piece. “When I first arrived in Dubai, I was a bit lost and at that time everything was big and shiny and very attractive so I somehow related the Nespresso caps with that. They are brightly coloured, metallic and commercially attractive,” she says. “Recycling was also new in Dubai so I decided to talk about that issue.” After deciding on the material, Vial went to the Nespresso shop in Dubai and asked if she could collect the empty capsules. She...
