Study confirms more than 90% end-of-life recycling rate for automotive aluminium in the US

Announcing good news to the aluminium and the automotive industry, a new study, by the Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Metal Processing Institute, home of the Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling (CR3) in association with Aluminum Association, concludes that the end-of-life recycling rate for automotive aluminium in the US is 91 per cent.

The third party review examines the amount of aluminum recovered and recycled from the United States’ light-duty automotive sector at the end of a vehicle’s service life. This new study bolsters the findings from earlier third-party government and auto industry reports that confirm aluminum to be the most sustainable material.

“We set out to detail exactly how aluminum is separated and recovered at the end of a vehicle’s service life and findings show it is highly recyclable and is recovered and reused at very high rates,” said Professor Diran Apelian, founding director of WPI’s Metal Processing Institute, which is home of the Center for Resource Recovery and Recycling.

The study called Automotive Aluminum Recycling at End of Life: A Grave-to-Gate Analysis records a “grave-to-gate” analysis, which tracks the journey from the moment an automobile becomes scrap to the moment the aluminum metal units are completely recycled and start a new life as a material for new application including automotive.

The use of aluminum in the automotive industry continues to increase and has reported a stable growth during last 40 years, mostly because of its environmental and light weighting and cosmetic benefits. Automakers can improve the sustainability of their products and operations through recycled aluminium and at the same time can secure their supply chain through closed-loop-recycling, which means that their auto parts are bought by their suppliers for recycling and they come back to them again as new parts.

 “Aluminum continues to show its fundamental value as a sustainable solution at every stage of an automobile’s life,” said Tom Boney, chairman of the Aluminum Association’s Aluminum Transportation Group (ATG) and vice president and general manager, Automotive Value Stream, Novelis North America.

The aluminum industry has been striving to cut down on its environmental footprint and making huge investments towards technological innovations in this regard.  A recent data from the Aluminum Association confirms that the energy consumption during primary aluminium production dropped more than a quarter since 1995 with carbon emissions dropping nearly 40 per cent due to the use of hydroelectric power sources.

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