Is an increased Recycled Metal Content (RMC) a meaningful environmental indicator for aluminium?
A higher recycled metal content in a given aluminium application is in general not meaningful as environmental indicator, as: • It only shows how much recycled material has been taken from the market of recycled metals and not how much has been put onto this market generating especially in the case of aluminium high environmental benefits. • There are no environmental benefits in directing recycled aluminium towards targeted market applications while it is already more efficiently recycled into other demanding markets. This may even create market distortions and additional environmental inefficiencies. For example, it may lead to transportation over longer distances resulting in adverse environmental impacts. • The continued growth of the aluminium market and the fact that most aluminium products have a fairly long lifetime (buildings, airplanes, automotive, etc.) means it is not possible to achieve a high recycled metal content for all new aluminium products, simply because the availa
