Rio Tinto to expand responsible aluminium offering with closed loop recycling; to liaison with Shawinigan Aluminium

Rio Tinto will initiate its first closed-loop recycling solution to complement its low carbon footprint aluminium billet production, delivering consumers with a sizable choice to meet the rising consumer demand for sustainable products.

The service will be available from 2021, offering customers in North America a new scrap take-back solution and production of high-quality alloys made with recycled content.

Tolga Egrilmezer, Rio Tinto Aluminium Vice President Sales and Marketing said “Our focus is on working with customers to deliver high-quality products that respond to their needs and we have developed this new recycling solution after requests from customers who want options to reprocess their extrusion scrap. It’s an offering that combines responsibly produced primary aluminium and recycled metal, demonstrating our commitment to a sustainable, circular economy. Our hydro-powered operations in Canada produce some of the world’s lowest carbon footprint aluminium and now we are enhancing our product offering with a true closed-loop recycling solution that further expands our wide range of customer focussed solutions. We expect this will be the first of many initiatives on the recycling front.”

Rio Tinto to liaison with Shawinigan Aluminium Inc. (SAI) for its recycling services, through a $7 million state of the art melting facility being constructed adjacent to SAI’s billet cast-house in Quebec. The facility will have the capacity to recycle 30,000 tonnes of aluminium per year.

Rio Tinto’s technical marketing experts will assist customers in selecting the right recycled content together with the optimal alloy for their specific needs. Rio Tinto is an industry leader on responsible aluminium. In 2016, it launched the industry's first certified low carbon aluminium, RenewAlTM. In 2018, Rio Tinto became the first company to receive certification from the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) as producing “responsible” aluminium. ELYSIS, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Alcoa supported by Apple and the governments of Canada and Quebec, is working to further develop a revolutionary smelting technology free of direct carbon emissions.

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