The move to electric vehicles (EVs) drives sustainability opportunities across the entire aluminium supply chain.
Novelis have been fueling efforts to capture aluminium for the global automotive supply chain via closed loop recycling programs and investments in new recycling operations. Now the focus turns to the industry's next challenge -- recapturing aluminium from vehicles once they are no longer on the road.
Novelis have said they have invested in and deployed innovative scrap sortation and segregation operations that "close the loop" by enabling aluminium from end-of-life vehicles to be captured, as well as conducted research and developed of new automotive aluminium alloys that accept higher scrap content along with creating single-alloy designs for hoods, doors and other closures that support design-for-disassembly initiatives.
Still, to fully realise the opportunity presented to the industry, Novelis says: "It is incumbent upon all players in the automotive supply chain to come together to make cost-effective recapture of high-value, end-of-life automotive aluminium a reality."
Every pound of recycled aluminium used cuts GHG emissions by up to 95% versus using primary aluminium, delivering measurable performance and sustainability benefits to automotive OEMs and consumers alike.
EVs Accelerate the Need for End-of-Life Recycling
The rise of electric vehicles – the vast majority of which leverage the lower weight, versatile performance properties and sustainability benefits of aluminium makes the search for solutions to end-of-life automotive aluminium scrap recapture an increasingly critical challenge for our industry's role in carbon reduction.
A New Auto Dismantling Paradigm
Reclaiming automotive aluminium at a vehicle's end of life can result in significant value capture. When the vehicle is ready for recycling, before it is crushed, we can capture and segregate its various aluminium alloys before they are mixed into "twitch" – scrap that combines a wide range of aluminium types and alloys at the scrap yard, which leads to downcycling high-quality material rather than preserving it for re-use in its original form.
It's important to keep in mind the primary objective – ensuring we do everything we can to preserve the value of automotive aluminium so these alloys aren't downgraded unnecessarily due to inefficient vehicle design and poor end-of-life recycling practices.
The initiative to improve end-of-life aluminium scrap recapture won't happen all at once, says Novelis. Some of these measures will take time to have a noticeable impact while others can benefit from our collective efforts in short order. The key is to recognise that we must come together as an industry to help drive these important initiatives.
The Way Forward is Clear
The development and adoption of higher recycled content automotive aluminium sheet is already under way, with progress coming in waves over the next few years.
Increased collaboration across the supply chain – particularly at the end-of-life stage – is necessary to engage dismantlers and scrap yards in creating win-win business models from both a financial and sustainability perspective. Discovering new partnerships with technology providers also represents a promising opportunity to create a more efficient future state of aluminium recycling and ensure that no amount of aluminium is downcycled or ends up in the landfill. As an industry, we all must work together to achieve a new reality for automotive aluminium.