Europe’s aluminium scrap exports to the US have risen by 243 per cent, highlighting a growing concern over the continent’s access to strategic raw materials as it pursues recycling, decarbonisation and industrial competitiveness. Evangelos Mytilineos, Executive Chairman of METLEN, raised the issue, linking scrap outflows to the broader challenges facing European industry, energy security and strategic autonomy. Aluminium scrap outflows raise industrial concerns Mytilineos referred to the contrasting US tariff treatment of aluminium products, i.e., a 50 per cent tariff on primary aluminium, compared with zero tariff on scrap . With European aluminium scrap exports to the US increasing by 243 per cent, he questioned whether Europe could strengthen its industrial base while allowing valuable...
The US aluminium used beverage can (UBC) scrap price benchmark tracked by Argus recorded a mixed performance over the third quarter of 2026, declining in July before rising in August and September. The monthly average increased from USD 2,322.89 per tonne in July to USD 2,491.22 per tonne in August and USD 2,602.51 per tonne in September, indicating a sustained recovery in the benchmark over the three months. July: Prices decline despite a high opening The benchmark began July at USD 2,464.98 per tonne on July 1, before falling sharply to USD 2,270.76 per tonne on July 3. The price remained at that level on July 2 and July 6, the lowest recorded price for the month. It subsequently recovered gradually, reaching USD 2,319.86 per tonne on July 10 and USD 2,328.63 per tonne on July 22....
Grow with
AL Circle
Secondary aluminium is increasingly central to Europe’s decarbonisation plans. It is used in automotive castings, construction profiles, packaging and consumer goods and is valued because it can deliver similar mechanical properties to primary metal while requiring a fraction of the energy and emitting far less carbon dioxide. The European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) have made low-carbon aluminium a strategic priority. As India’s scrap aluminium imports have continued to rise, from 0.88 million tonnes in CY15 to nearly 2 million tonnes in CY25, with a long-term CAGR of about 8.6 per cent, stronger traceability and licensing requirements are becoming increasingly important across the secondary aluminium supply chain. For this...
India’s aluminium recycling sector has matured significantly over the past decade. Secondary aluminium, produced by remelting and refining scrap, now accounts for a growing share of the country’s total aluminium consumption. Recycling aluminium requires up to 95 per cent less energy than smelting primary metal from bauxite, and that energy advantage flows directly into pricing: secondary alloy ingots are consistently priced below equivalent primary material, often by a meaningful margin, without compromising performance for most industrial applications. The Indian market has a wide spread of recycled-aluminium suppliers, from fully integrated, ISO-certified recyclers operating multi-location facilities and supplying global customers, to informal remelters working from single furnaces...
Trimet is bringing aluminium scrap sorting and processing in-house at a new German facility, using laser technology to improve recycled metal quality and raw material security. Trimet Aluminium is preparing to open a new aluminium recycling site in Hamm, Germany, as growing demand for recycled metal puts greater pressure on international scrap markets. The facility, which is scheduled to start operations in October, will process and sort aluminium scrap at a planned capacity of 40,000 tonnes per year. Trimet said the site will strengthen supplies of high-quality recycled raw materials to foundries and remelting plants while reducing its reliance on external processing partners. Laser technology sorts 150 pieces of scrap per second The centrepiece of the new operation is an automated...
India’s rapidly expanding secondary aluminium industry is facing a shortage of domestic scrap, leaving recyclers dependent on overseas suppliers and vulnerable to changing trade policies in major exporting regions. Secondary aluminium production has increased from approximately 0.85 million tonnes in 2015–16 to nearly 2.2 million tonnes in 2025–26, according to industry estimates cited by the Material Recycling Association of India. The sector now supplies around 35 per cent of India’s aluminium consumption, but imports account for roughly 80 per cent-85 per cent of its scrap requirements. The imbalance is prompting recyclers and primary aluminium producers to push competing policy proposals on the 2.5 per cent basic customs duty applied to imported aluminium scrap. Domestic scrap cannot...
Aluminium’s circular economy is no longer a sustainability side story — it is becoming a contest over who controls scrap, who sets the compliance bar, and who can afford the energy to keep smelting. On one hand, recycled aluminium is being tested, as dross piles up in China, scrap ships out of the US faster than domestic recyclers can replace it, and only a third of the world’s beverage cans actually become cans again. On the other hand, governments are throwing real money at keeping primary production alive, from Canberra’s power-price rescue of an Australian smelter to Chinese capital scouting a new industrial base in Egypt. These indicate that circularity is becoming as much a matter of industrial strategy and geopolitics as of technology. To know the aluminium casting demand forecast...
The United States exported about 1.25 million tonnes of aluminium-bearing scrap in the first half of 2026, up 21 per cent from 1.03 million tonnes during the same period last year. The figures, based on US Census Bureau data cited by Davis Index, show that more recycled aluminium is leaving the country even as domestic producers and policymakers debate whether the material should be retained to support US supply chains. Thailand and India lead purchases Thailand was the largest destination for US aluminium scrap in the first six months of 2026, receiving 268,000 tonnes. India followed with 233,350 tonnes, while Malaysia, South Korea and Hong Kong rounded out the top five destinations with 160,700 tonnes, 139,500 tonnes and 136,200 tonnes respectively. All five markets increased their...
New IAI data show that closing the can-to-can loop, not simply collecting more cans, will decide whether the industry produces 207 billion or 685 billion recycled cans by 2050. A Six Sigma study from Kentucky, co-authored nearly two decades ago by Dr Subodh K. Das, offers a strikingly relevant blueprint for treating every unrecycled can as a preventable process defect. Aluminium's most-quoted recycling statistic keeps getting bigger, but a new analysis from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) suggests that scale alone will not decide how much of that metal comes back as new cans. According to the IAI’s September 2025 factsheet, "Can-to-Can Recycling: Performance, Potential and Pathways," the industry currently puts around 420 billion aluminium beverage cans on the market every...
A new report by German industry organisation Aluminium und Umwelt im Fenster- und Fassadenbau (AUF), prepared in partnership with European Aluminium, highlights the progress of closed-loop aluminium recycling in Germany's building sector. The study focuses on aluminium scrap generated from windows, doors and façade systems, and examines how more material can be kept within the construction industry through recycling. According to the 28-page report, AUF collected 75,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap in 2023 through its recycling network. The organisation said its members include construction companies, window and façade manufacturers, system suppliers, demolition firms, architects and planners. The collection system is supported by “Seventeen environmental partners and processors, with a...
London-based water technology company Metal Morph has raised USD 944,000 in pre-seed funding to develop technology that recovers aluminium- and iron-based treatment chemicals from municipal and industrial wastewater. The round, announced on August 13, 2026, was co-led by Sustainable Ventures and Green Angel Ventures, with participation from Aqcelerator and Found Capital. Metal Morph will use the funding to advance its resource-recovery technology, support industry pilots and expand into European markets. The company’s process is designed to capture treatment chemicals that would otherwise be discharged into sewers, sent to landfill or spread on land, and return them to water-treatment operations. Recovering aluminium-based treatment chemicals Metal Morph’s technology is not recycling...
The BMW Group and its consortium partners have demonstrated that a larger share of material recovered from end-of-life vehicles could return to new automotive applications, increasing the project’s “Car2Car rate” from 6 per cent to 51 per cent under expanded processing and sorting conditions. The rate, as defined by the project, measures the percentage of material from an end-of-life vehicle that can potentially be recovered at a quality suitable for reuse in new industrial applications. It does not mean that 51 per cent of every scrapped vehicle can currently be recycled into a new car under standard commercial conditions. The results are based on research and demonstration work conducted under optimised processing conditions. They show the potential of improved material separation,...
The UK will struggle to build a resilient circular aluminium economy if protectionist trade measures restrict access to recycled metal markets and overseas processing capacity, according to Tom Bird, executive chairman at Enicor. Bird argues that free and fair trade in recycled aluminium is essential at a time when demand is rising, energy prices are increasing and geopolitical tensions are disrupting global supply chains. Although more countries are seeking to retain recycled metal within their domestic markets, he says restricting cross-border flows could undermine the investment needed to expand recycling capacity. Demand is set to rise sharply The UK’s aluminium demand is projected to increase from approximately 1.8 million tonnes currently to around 8 million tonnes annually by 2035....
China accounted for nearly half of the world’s aluminium dross generation, underlining the scale of its primary aluminium production, secondary aluminium recycling and downstream processing industries. In 2025, the country generated approximately 2.75 million tonnes of aluminium dross, representing 47 per cent of the global total of 5.86 million tonnes Aluminium dross is an inevitable by-product of aluminium melting, smelting, alloying, casting and recycling. When molten aluminium comes into contact with atmospheric oxygen, a surface layer forms. This layer contains aluminium oxides, entrapped metallic aluminium, nitrides, carbides, chlorides, fluorides and other impurities and is commonly known as aluminium dross. The quantity and composition of dross can vary depending on the furnace...
Aluminium recycler and aluminium alloy producer Baheti Recycling Industries Limited (NSE: BAHETI) has begun FY2027 strong, with its revenues for the first quarter of the financial year of 2027 (Q1 FY27) rising 88.9 per cent year-on-year to INR 2.54 billion (USD 26.6 million). The performance was propelled by sustained demand in its core aluminium recycling businesses, improved product mix and consistent execution. Baheti Recycling recorded net total revenue of INR 2.54 billion (USD 26.6 million) in Q1 FY27, compared with INR 1.34 billion (USD 14.09 million) in Q1 FY26, translating into an 88.9 per cent Y-o-Y increase. The sharp jump is a major improvement in the company’s top line at the beginning of the new financial year. To know the aluminium casting demand forecast in the construction...
The aluminium industry has entered a new race. It is no longer just about producing lower-carbon metal but about securing the scrap, infrastructure and policy support needed to keep circular supply chains competitive. For years, recycling has been one of aluminium's strongest sustainability advantages. Recycled aluminium requires up to 95 per cent less energy than primary production, making it central to global decarbonisation efforts. Yet the industry's priorities are evolving. The key question is no longer how much aluminium can be recycled, but who will control the scrap that makes recycling possible. Recent developments across Brazil, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, India and Australia point to the same conclusion. Governments are reassessing scrap exports, recyclers are...
Brazil's aluminium industry is facing a growing shortage of scrap as exports to Asia, particularly China, continue to increase, raising concerns over domestic recycling, decarbonisation and future competitiveness. Aluminium recycling plays a key role in reducing emissions, with recycled aluminium requiring up to 95 per cent less energy than primary production. However, Brazilian producers say increasing exports of aluminium scrap are making it more difficult to secure raw materials for domestic recycling. According to the Brazilian Aluminium Association (Abal), around 80 per cent of Brazil's aluminium scrap exports are now shipped to Asia, while China accounts for nearly one-quarter of the country's total scrap exports. Shipments have increased by 590 per cent since 2022, reflecting...
Sunlite Recycling Industries posted a strong start to FY27, with its aluminium business emerging as one of the key growth drivers during the quarter ended June 30, 2026. The company reported consolidated revenue of INR 7.84 billion (USD 90.1 million), up 74.62 per cent year on year, supported by robust demand across its aluminium and copper recycling businesses. The quarter also marked the first full reporting period following the integration of Sunlite Aluminium Private Limited as a wholly owned subsidiary, strengthening the company's position as an integrated producer of copper and aluminium products. The business update was submitted to the National Stock Exchange of India Limited on August 3, 2026, in compliance with Regulation 30 of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing...
Speira is progressing with the redevelopment of its Rheinwerk facility in Neuss, Germany, as it continues transforming the site into an aluminium recycling hub. The aluminium rolling and recycling company has invested around EUR 40 million (USD 46 million) in a fourth recycling furnace, which is due to come on stream this autumn. It has also invested in the decommissioning and redevelopment of the site's former aluminium smelter. With the complete phase-out of electrolysis, Speira said it has set the course for a fundamental transformation of the Rheinwerk site. Instead of energy-intensive primary production, the company is now focusing on aluminium recycling and strengthening the circular economy. The new fourth recycling furnace is a key part of this transition. Aluminium scrap will be...
AMS Advanced Material Bhd, Malaysia, is set to enter the aluminium scrap recycling business after its subsidiary, AMS Ecogreen Sdn Bhd, obtained all the licences required to begin operations. This expansion takes the company into aluminium recycling and strengthens its existing aluminium processing business. The new business will collect, process and sell aluminium scrap from its facility in Johor. The plant will have an initial processing capacity of about 17 tonnes per month. To know the aluminium casting demand forecast in the construction sector, explore our report " Global Aluminium Casting Market 2026-2032: Plant Economics, Alloy Segmentation, Pricing Intelligence, Supply Chain Analysis & Strategic Recommendations " Managing Director Keh Teng Yang said receiving the required...
