How is aluminium recycled?
Recycled aluminium generally falls into two broad categories. New scrap resulting from a manufacturing process such as extrusion is often not contaminated and of known quality. This scrap is remelted and reprocessed with very little further treatment. Due to its high value, such scrap enjoys an almost 100% recycle rate. Old scrap, such as that from beverage cans, building and transport is gathered and recycled via an efficient network of scrap metal merchants which sort and separate it from other metals such as iron and steel. This scrap is most usually remelted by secondary refiners into silicon based alloys used predominantly for aluminium castings. In Europe, recycling rates of aluminium cans can reach up to 63% whilst rates from buildings and transport are higher again and 85% & 95% respectively. As recycling of aluminium requires only 5% of the initial energy consumed to create it, recycling one tonne of aluminium saves 5 tonnes of bauxite and 15,000 kilowatt hours of electricity,
