Page 19 from: January / February 2016

17January/February 2016

kg-plus lighter than its previous steel-based
incarnation.
In 2015, US car producers sold a long-term
record of close to 17.5 million light vehicles,
driven by low fuel prices, pent-up demand,
widespread credit availability, an increase in
leasing and employment gains. Meanwhile,
it has been estimated that global light vehicle
production will climb from 88 million units in
2015 to 90.2 million units in 2016, and then to
almost 105 million units by 2020.

Shrinking third-party scrap demand
According to Rosenblum, growing hunger for
‘higher-quality’ recycled aluminium had resulted
in a ‘significant increase’ over the previous six
months in in-house scrap and scrap from closed-
loop manufacturing in the USA. ‘Closed-loop
return scrap accelerates, and more and more
negates third-party scrap purchases,’ he asserted.
As a consequence, the North American mar-
ket has been flooded with aluminium scrap,
the system has clogged up, and the situation
will probably not change in the short term,
according to Rosenblum. And owing to sof-
tening growth, scrap demand among emerging

economies – particularly China – has decreased
while a strong US dollar has also ‘discouraged’
overseas shipments, the speaker maintained.
Rosenblum also pointed to the ‘huge’ impact
of the US West Coast ports slowdown in the
first half of 2015. ‘The scrap just could not be
exported and came back to the domestic mar-
ket,’ he explained. ‘As a consequence there was
oversupply, giving an extra boost for aluminium
scrap prices to decline.’

Leave recycling to recyclers
Like Rosenblum, EMR’s European non-ferrous
director Murat Bayram was critical of the shift
towards closed-loop aluminium scrap. ‘Closed-

loop recycling sounds like an intelligent solu-
tion to the recycling challenge, but it is fraught
with operational and commercial difficulties,’
he stated.
Contending that scrap recycling was a profes-
sion that should be left to the recycling industry,
he elaborated: ‘Recyclers play the unique role
in matching supply to demand, hence boost-
ing quality and volumes.’ Given the ‘significant
and complex’ organisation required to move
scrap, he added that a major recycler such as
EMR brought ‘logistical strength and a good
network, flexibility in switching destinations
and fast reaction to market needs’.
Recyclers did a job that could not be replaced
one for one by closed-loop systems, Bayram
insisted.
He therefore underlined the case for ‘letting
recyclers play the role they should play, namely
being an added step in the recycling chain,
with a zero-waste and low-energy footprint
and, more importantly, with clear added com-
mercial value’.

Raising rates is what counts
According to Rexam’s Revess, closed loops are
certainly not the only way forward. ‘Can-to-can
recycling is good, but not necessarily in a closed
loop,’ he argued. ‘Achieving a nominated recy-
cled content for one specific application simply
reduces it in another. The only way to improve
the environmental performance of metals is to
further enhance collection and recovery. Raise
the recycling rates – that’s what counts.’
Revess highlighted ‘effective communication’
initiatives as a means to increase consumer par-
ticipation in recycling, including the new Metal
Recycles Forever mark that has been developed
to unify environmental messaging across rigid

Automotive and beverage can industries challenged by rapidly growing demand for recycled aluminium

Closed-loop supplies ‘negating’ third-party scrap purchases
The darker side of a recycling icon
At the Madrid conference, automotive industry
expert Kevin Moore of US-based All Raw Mate-
rials Consulting criticised what he observes as
‘not enough promotion’ in the USA for the added
value of aluminium in a car.
‘Driving light-weighing cars does not come across
as really sexy, at least not yet,’ he told delegates.
‘In the US, you don’t see a real desire to change
and work towards a lower carbon
footprint. It is not, or not yet, in
our system.’ If aluminium vehi-
cles were as cheap as their steel
counterparts, ‘all the cars would
be aluminium now’, he declared.
Aluminium vehicles may be lighter
and cheaper to fuel but the US
consumer simply does not seem
to care, according to Moore. ‘Why
should he, with close to record-
low gasoline prices?’ he asked.

‘Look at the (Ford) F150. This has been herald-
ed as a recycling icon, and yes, it may have set
records in use of (recycled) aluminium compo-
nents. All true, but the reality is that people still
want such a model of pick-up truck equipped with
an eight-litre cylinder. So despite its aluminium
content, would someone please explain to me
how environmentally friendly that is?’

John Revess: ‘Raise the
recyc ling rates – that’s
what counts.’

David Rosenblum:
‘Closed-loop return scrap
accelerates.’

Murat Bayram: let recy-
clers play the role they
should play.

Stefan Glimm: a far more
economic way to collect
is needed.