20 January/February 2016
C O M P A N Y P R O F I L E
By the year 2020, aluminium pro-
ducer Hydro aims to have more than
doubled its post-consumer scrap
recycling volumes. The company is
investing heavily in capacity and in
technology, primarily at its remelting
and recycling facilities in Germany
and Luxembourg. Hydro’s senior
vice president and head of recycling
Roland Scharf-Bergmann is proud
of the steps being taken. But at the
same time, he underlines that recy-
cled aluminium alone will not satisfy
light metal demand in the long term.
‘Still the biggest supply will be from
primary sources,’ he insists.
Norway-based Hydro is the world’s third-largest integrated aluminium producer and supplies
the market with more than 3 million tonnes of cast-
house products every year. Boasting a global pro-
duction network, it is a major source of extrusion
ingot, sheet ingot, foundry alloys and high-purity
aluminium.
The company already handles roughly 1.1 million
tonnes of aluminium scrap on an annual basis –
of which most is left by industrial processes – and
claims to be well on track to boosting its recycling
activities substantially. Within the next four years,
the 110 000 tonnes of post-consumer scrap handled
annually by Hydro is set to grow to 250 000 tonnes.
Hydro’s ambitions are clear: achieve carbon neutral-
ity in 2020 and, moreover, meet the ever-growing
worldwide demand from the car, can and construc-
tion industries for recycled aluminium prod-
ucts. Indeed, the International Aluminium
Institute has estimated that recycled aluminium
scrap volumes will grow from 18 million tonnes
in 2013 to almost 31 million tonnes by 2020.
Building capacity
In order to get there, major steps have been taken
by the big players in aluminium recycling – and
Hydro is one of them. The company recently
took over WMR Recycling of Dormagen in Ger-
many where advanced X-ray sorting technology
is used and where the sorting capacity is 36 000
tonnes of aluminium scrap per year.
In nearby Neuss, meanwhile, Hydro has been
investing Euro 45 million in building a new
integrated recycling line for used beverage
cans covering some 20 000 square metres,
the objective behind which is to increase the
annual capacity from 50 000 tonnes to more
than 100 000 tonnes of can scrap.
Another huge undertaking by Hydro is to
upgrade its Clervaux remelting and recy-
cling plant in Luxembourg, described by the
company’s head of recycling Roland Scharf-
Bergmann as ‘a blueprint’ for Hydro’s future
recycling operations. ‘Thanks to the latest
melting and decoating solutions, we will get
the best quality material out,’ he states.
Full control over scrap
In the future, efficient sorting of scrap will
become increasingly important in the alu-
minium industry, says Scharf-Bergmann.
By Martijn Reintjes
for
Aluminium major stepping up its recycling
Hurrah
Hydro
