Recognizing the demand from customers, consumers and policymakers around the world for up-to-date and easy to access information, the IAI has developed the site to demonstrate the economic, social and environmental benefits and the future potential of aluminium recycling.

The new website, launched in connection with the International Aluminium Recycling Congress in Vienna, Austria, features interactive content based on IAI’s long-running “mass flow” research and extensive statistical database, as well as recycling success stories from around the world.

The site also provides data on recycling rates and energy and emissions savings; measures that are central to the aluminium industry’s sustainability strategy of reducing the environmental impact of its facilities, increasing the use of aluminium in energy saving applications and maximizing the recycling of products at the end of their useful life.

Aluminium for future generations

The recycling website, titled Aluminium for Future Generations, follows on from the success of the IAI’s recent green building and transport websites, which have proved popular with architects, car manufacturers, policymakers and academics, who are looking for quantitative data and real life examples of aluminium use in sustainable products.

“The Aluminium for Future Generations website is a fantastic resource for everyone involved in the recycling process... and in a sustainable world, that is all of us: individuals and governments, aluminium producers and customers, waste management companies and municipalities. The fact that, at the end of its life, an aluminium product is 100 percent recyclable and still has a very high value, has led to high recycling rates globally and the potential for even greater material, energy and emissions savings into the future,” Brandtzæg said.

Facts about aluminium recycling

• Aluminium is infinitely recyclable – approximately 75 percent of all aluminium ever produced since 1888 (around 1 billion tonnes) is still in productive use, some having been through countless loops of its lifecycle.
  
  
• Globally, the recycling of aluminium saves over 90 million tonnes of CO2 annually and over 100,000 GWh of electrical energy, equivalent to the annual power consumption of the Netherlands.
  
  
• Aluminium recycling requires up to 95 percent less energy than primary aluminium production.
  
  
• Aluminium’s economic scrap value and ability to be recycled continuously makes the aluminium beverage can the most recycled container in the world with an average recycling rate of 60 percent and over 90 percent in some countries.
  
  
• Globally, aluminium achieves among the highest material recycling rates, with up to 90 percent for transport and construction applications.
  
  
• Aluminium can be recycled over and over again without any loss of quality.

(Source: International Aluminium Institute)