Aluminum Recycling Conserves Energy

Aluminum industry expert David D'Addario serves New Day Aluminum as chairman and CEO. He brings to this role more than thirty years of experience in the metals industry, which dates from his graduation from Yale University in 1984. In addition to his professional engagements at New Day Aluminum, David D'Addario has held several senior positions in national and international aluminum recycling businesses.

The Aluminum Association has reported that three quarters of all aluminum cans in worldwide circulation today have been recycled many times over. This is due in part to the fact that aluminum is one of the easiest to recycle materials in the world.

In an article published by Forbes, producing virgin aluminum from extracted and refined bauxite is a “complicated, costly, and energy-intensive process.” In the article, Forbes calculated that to produce one metric ton of aluminum requires 14,000 kilowatts of electricity. Recycling a metric ton of aluminum, on the other hand, requires just 5 percent of the electricity needed to produce aluminum from ore.

Based on a September 2019 Aluminum Association report, the aluminum can recycling rate in the US was at 49.8 percent, while the aluminum recycling rate throughout US industry stands at 63.6 percent. Recently, the countries with the highest known aluminum recycling rates were Brazil at 98.4 percent in 2014 and Japan at 77.1 percent in 2015.