By the year 2020, the Aluminium demand is projected to get increased to 70 million tonnes, with over 30 million tonnes obtained from recycled scrap. Recycling Aluminium that is currently in use as cars, commercial vehicles, ships, airplanes etc would equal up to 18 years of primary Aluminium output. The amount of Aluminium produced from old scrap has been growing from 1.4 million tonnes in 1980 to a whooping 6.8 million tonnes in 2004. The transport sector has been the most important resource of recycled Aluminium. Today recycled Aluminium is produced from 44% transport, 28% packaging, 10% engineering and cables and only a mere 7% from building applications due to its long use phase. Shown in the fig is a graphical representation of Aluminium scrap sources.



However, Aluminium recycling will undergo major changes through the next decade. Buildings that contributes only 7% of aluminium scrap now; will represent up to 33%, recycled aluminium from transport will fall down to 32%. The schematic representation of the forecast is shown in the fig.

The growing markets for Aluminium are supplied by both primary and recycled metal sources. The increase in demand for Aluminium and long life time of the products mean that the overall volume of primary metal will continue to be noticeably greater than the volume of recycled metal.

It will be clear from the representation that the volume of primary metal will continue to be much more than recycled Aluminium if recycling rate is not increased.

GLOBAL ENERGY SAVINGS DUE TO ALUMINIUM RECYCLING

Recycling Aluminium saves up to 95% of energy required for primary Aluminium productions thereby avoiding harmful emissions including green house gases. Improving overall recycling rate of Aluminium is very much essential for sustainable development. Today, recycling of Aluminium scrap saves up to 80 million tonnes of green house emissions per year, which is equivalent to the emission of 15 million cars. The reduction in Co2 emissions in future by the End-life Aluminium recycling is predicted and shown below.

The objective of the Aluminium industry for 2020 or beyond is to reduce the green house emissions, conserve less energy and avoid dependence on natural resources; with the help of recycling. All the energy inefficient materials used today will be replaced by Aluminium (especially transport applications). And so the demand for the same will shoot up. Inorder to eliminate the energy losses during the production of Aluminium due to this increased demand, recycling of Aluminium scrap has to be followed from now!