Top 5 aluminium recycling companies that are currently leading the global market

Infinitely recyclable without losing the original properties is what makes the metal aluminium popular worldwide across multiple industries. According to AL Circle’s recently released report: “Global Aluminium Industry: Key Trends to 2030”, the world recycled aluminium usage stood at 27.1 million tonnes in 2022 and is expected to grow to record more than 28 million tonnes in 2023. End-user sectors like packaging, automotive, construction, and electronics primarily drive the global recycled aluminium consumption. Aluminium scrap is recycled to produce secondary aluminium and subsequently new aluminium products. It is evident that the countries that consume the highest amount of aluminium are the countries that generate the largest volume of scrap. North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific are the leading aluminium recycling hubs with some of the largest recyclers. Let us explore the top-most ones among them based on production volume and revenue.   

1) Novelis:

A subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Limited, Novelis is the world’s largest aluminium recycler. Globally, the US-based company can recycle 82 billion aluminium cans a year, as per a report published in 2022. From mid-2025, it will be capable of recycling around 97 million cans a year, with an expanded capacity. Novelis is building an aluminium recycling and rolling facility in Bay Minette, Ala, which will be the first fully integrated aluminium mill built in the US in the past four decades.

The company’s fiscal year 2022 annual report also showed that Novelis’ recycled content across all products averaged 57 per cent. Novelis purchased or tolled over 2.2 million tonnes of recycled metal during FY2022.

In addition to the Bay Minette facility, Novelis is building a $130 million project to boost recycling capabilities at its Oswego, New York plant and setting up a $365 million recycling facility in Guthrie, Kentucky. Across the world, Novelis already has recycling operations at 15 of its plants.

North America is the most dominant market for Novelis, followed by Europe, Asia, and South America.

2) Constellium SE

Constellium, a global leader in the development and manufacturing of high-value-added aluminium products and solutions, is capable of recycling the equivalent of 32 billion used beverage cans a year. Its Neuf-Brisach plant in France and Muscle Shoals in Alabama are integrated facilities involved in recycling to produce finished products, with state-of-the-art recycling capacities and advanced production processes. The company is a world-leading supplier and recycler of can bodystock and can end/tabstock for the aluminium packaging market. 

In April 2023, Constellium announced its agreement with Renault Group to establish a closed-loop recycling process for the all-new Megane E-TECH Electric. Renault Group will bring manufacturing scrap from the stamping process directly back to Constellium, and the latter will recycle the scrap and produce best-in-class aluminium auto body sheet for outer panels for the all-new Megane E-TECH Electric.

3) Norsk Hydro ASA

Norsk Hydro, a Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, has a recycling capacity of around 2 million tonnes a year, consisting of 25 recycling facilities in Europe, the United States, and Canada and a sorting facility in Dormagen, Germany. To take the lead in promoting decarbonisation and circular economy, Hydro is enthusiastically investing in expanding its recycling capacity. Recently, the company signed an agreement to purchase land in Torija, Spain, where it wants to construct a state-of-the-art aluminium recycling facility. The plant will strengthen Hydro’s capabilities to produce low-carbon aluminium, with 120,000 tonnes of annual recycling capacity operated by about 65 direct employees. The facility will be enabled to produce Hydro CIRCAL and other recycled low-carbon aluminium with a CO2 footprint below 4 kg CO2 per kg aluminium.

In addition, Hydro plans to develop remelt scrap ingot production at its plant in Wrexham, UK, in a bid to boost its own post-consumer scrap recycling capacity. This investment will increase Hydro’s recycling capacity to a total of around 103,000 tonnes per year.

4)  Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto recently acquired 50 per cent equity of Giampaolo Group’s wholly-owned Matalco, a leading producer of high-quality recycled aluminium billet and slab products with a capacity of approximately 900,000 tonnes per annum. With an investment of $700 million, Rio Tinto has expanded its high-quality, low-carbon, recycled aluminium product offerings, at a time when customers are looking for solutions to lower their carbon footprint.

Rio Tinto Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm said, “Investing in recycling is part of our drive to find better ways to deliver the low-carbon materials the world needs and provides a natural extension of our industry-leading primary aluminum business.”

Prior to that, Rio Tinto invested of US$29 million to build a new aluminium recycling facility at its Arvida Plant in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec, aiming to offer low-carbon aluminium solutions for customers in the automotive, packaging, and construction markets. The facility will be operation in the March quarter of 2024, with an initial capacity of 30,000 tonnes per year.

Rio Tinto also invested $8.4 million to add a new remelting furnace at its Laterrière Plant’s casting centre, in a bid to increase its recycling capacity. The recycling centre started operation with an initial capacity of 22,000 tonner per annum.

5) Speira

Speira is a leading European aluminium rolling and recycling company, comprising a total of eleven recycling and production sites in Germany and Norway. Speira recycles up to 650,000 tonnes of aluminium per year since the time it completes the acquisition of Real Alloy Europe in March 2023. The acquisition includes three aluminium and magnesium recycling facilities in Germany, an aluminium recycling plant and a salt slag recycling facility in Norway, expanding Speira’s aluminium recycling capacity by two-fold. Speira boasts of its century-old experience and technical expertise in recycling products.