Boeing and Alcoa to streamline aluminium recycling

United States – Boeing and aluminium producer Alcoa have formed a closed-loop programme that will ‘significantly increase the recycling of internal aluminium aerospace alloys used during the production of Boeing airplanes’, the two companies have announced.

The initiative will entail the transportation of aluminium scrap – including advanced alloys – from Boeing facilities in the US states of Washington and Kansas to Alcoa’s plant in Louisiana for melting and recycling into new aerospace products.

According to an Alcoa news release, the programme involves the recycling of aluminium used to produce Boeing’s wing and fuselage components, including extrusions, sheet and plate products. Around 8 million pounds of aluminium is expected to be recycled annually.

Alcoa says the recycling programme also creates a blueprint that could be expanded: to the recovery of scrap from Boeing subcontractors; and to other forms of aluminium scrap, including that created by the machining of parts.