01.02.2021

Recycling is one of a handful of production processes that everybody understands, rather than just professionals. Furthermore, practically anybody can take part in the collection and sorting of recyclable waste: all you need to do is to take an empty aluminium can to a waste collection point. Aluminium is lightweight, resistant to wear and tear, and infinitely recyclable.

For everyone.

As a method for reusing waste materials in production recycling has been used for quite a long time. Thus, many will probably remember the large scale waste paper, metal scrap and glass container collection programmes that existed in the USSR. However, the word recycling only caught on relatively recently along with other terms having to do with the so-called 'green economy'.

Recycled raw materials in the products of global brands:

• Novelis — 80% (the contents of recycled materials in product),
• Coca-Cola — 50%( recycled materials through 2030),
• Toyota — 30% (contents of recycled materials in the cast aluminium wheels),
• Nespresso — over 80% (contents of recycled materials),
• Constellium — 80%( the level of recycled cans in Europe over the next few years).

There are two types of waste: industrial waste by-produced during industrial production and domestic waste generated as a result of the use of products in the final stages of their lifecycle. The former type of waste has for a long time been successfully reused in production even when it's highly contaminated toxic waste: special processes and methodologies have been developed to recycle lacquered, painted and contaminated turnings and small pieces of aluminium. The latter gets collected, sorted and taken back to production facilities by domestic consumers and special metal scrap processing companies. As was already noted above, the economics of recycling is easy to understand even for non-specialists: waste is offered in the market at lower prices than primary raw materials. If you recycle waste into remelted alloys or make finished products from recycled materials, you save on raw materials. However, while recycling of some materials can be a rather complicated process with many environmental requirements with some waste never being naturally degradable, the situation with aluminium is completely different. Used aluminium products are a highly liquid waste and aluminium companies are actually competing to buy them. It's a most attractive raw material.

Scrap trumps all

Currently, major efforts are underway around the world to develop a circular economy, i.e. an economy that is based on fully reusable products and processes. The governments of many countries are investing in electric vehicles, green construction, renewable energy, reusable packaging materials. Investors and consumers alike are prompting producers to pay even more attention to environmental protection. Serious efforts are underway to reduce the socio-environmental impact and minimise the carbon footprint across the entire production chain. The reuse of scrap is fast becoming a mandatory requirement for major global companies. The numbers are quite impressive: modern Apple products are 100% made from recycled and renewable materials; Ball Corporation has approached 100% in terms of recycling; Arconic is currently at 80% (the required content of recycled materials in billets in the US). The level of recycling is equally high in the EU. In the automotive industry and construction, it's about 90-95%, aluminium cans use 74% of recycled materials and in total for all packaging materials, it's 60%. Meanwhile, European Aluminium Association experts are predicting further growth in the share of recycled aluminium in total output: it should become the foundation for the resource autonomy of the aluminium industry of Western Europe. According to the development strategy of the aluminium industry through 2059 adopted in Japan the share of recycled aluminium waste in total raw materials must be at least 50%. The CO2 emissions of the aluminium industry are supposed to fall by 78% even as aluminium consumption is expected to grow from the current 4.22 mln tonnes a year to 6 mln tonnes annually. Meanwhile the share of recycled waste in the total raw materials across all aluminium products should reach 75%.

We're following the trend

Russia, on the whole, is following the global recycling trend. In recent years this country's consumption of remelted alloys has once again exceeded the consumption of primary metal. Every year more than 600,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap gets collected and recycled in Russia. The total output of remelted alloys is 550,000 tonnes per year, of which 101,000 tonnes are cast alloys, 152,000 tonnes are billets and 92,000 tonnes is deoxidation. The bulk of metal scrap is produced by machine engineering, the automotive industry and the consumer goods sector. Machine engineering produces 142,000 tonnes of scrap per year, the automotive industry — 131,000 tonnes and consumer goods — 126,000 tonnes. It is expected that the share of the automotive industry in the total production of scrap is going to increase until at least 2030. This is going to happen as a result of an increase in the total number of vehicles as well as in the aluminium content per vehicle.

Scarp collection in Russia:

• Energy sector: 75,000 tonnes
• Cans: 60,000 tonnes
• Wheels: 80,000 tonnes
• Turnings: 40,000 tonnes
• Engines: 40,000 tonnes
• Mixed scrap: 370,000 tonnes

Experts prognosticate this is going to amount to 182,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, the share of construction is going to almost double from 95,000 to 174,000 tonnes while consumer goods will grow from 128,000 to 156,000 tonnes. Products made from recycled aluminium such as extruded products, cast products, automotive components, and consumer goods, may make a significant contribution to the implementation of the action plan for the development of the aluminium industry through 2023. The share of recycled aluminium in these products is very noticeable: 59% in cast products, 39% in extruded products, 15% in rolled products, 2% in cables.

Divide and conquer

It's not possible to just grab any old piece of recycled aluminium, put it in an alloy and get the characteristics you want. Therefore, alloys made from recycled aluminium has some constraints. For example, it's impossible to make high-quality foil from them, draw wires or make some of the products that are currently being made mostly from primary aluminium and primary aluminium alloys. Naturally, when it comes to making high load products or products that require special treatment before use (anodising) primary foundry alloys are preferred. And yet, alloys made from recycled aluminium have a whole host of uses: almost all kinds of cast products (for any uses), extruded products and rolled products. If waste is sorted correctly, alloys can be produced that offer practically the same performance as alloys from primary aluminium. The most important bit is to sort waste by type during reclamaation of the recycled materials. In the aluminium industry, we do have this kind of sorting, we know how to identify different groups of alloys and determine for which types of products they can be used. Careful sorting makes it possible to use recycled materials in production to the greatest extent at minimal cost. One can't but be reminded of the famous Russian chemist Dmitry Mendeleev who once said that there is no such thing as waste, only unused raw materials.