Novelis Makes £1.7 Million Recycling Investment In Warrington Facility
Warrington, Cheshire, May 23, 2013 – Novelis, the world leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, announced the completion of a £1.7 million upgrade program at its aluminium can recycling plant in Warrington, Cheshire. The state-of-the-art equipment improves the plant’s efficiency and doubles its capacity to process contaminated aluminium beverage cans, enabling Novelis to meet the growing demand for recycled aluminium.
The new cleaning line for used beverage cans (UBCs) enhances the plant’s capacity to remove residual plastic and paper from contaminated bales of beverage cans, prior to them being melted down and recycled.
“This investment further strengthens our operations here and serves as an important step toward reaching Novelis’ global goal of 80 percent recycled content by 2020,” said Brian McCallie, Plant Manager at the Warrington site. “The improvement in efficiency also brings with it an increased opportunity to work with UK-based suppliers of UBCs.”
Novelis is the world’s leading recycler of aluminium, recycling around 40 billion UBCs globally every year. In the UK, Novelis Recycling has been driving the development of the infrastructure for aluminium can recycling for more than 20 years. The company purchases UK-sourced aluminium cans for recycling and employs over 140 people.
Novelis’ Warrington plant operates a ‘closed loop’ reprocessing system which takes used aluminium beverage cans and other types of aluminium scrap, shreds them, strips them of paints and lacquers, melts them and forms them into large ingots – each one weighing 27 tonnes. These are then sent to a rolling mill to be made into can body sheet which is used by UK-based beverage can manufacturers to make new cans. This process means that an aluminium drink can recycled today can be back on the supermarket shelf in as few as 60 days. Aluminium can be recycled again and again without losing any of its properties – saving energy and resources, reducing litter and waste.
The aluminium can recycling market has seen rapid growth over the past few years with around eight billion1 aluminium drink cans filled and sold in the UK in 2011 and an impressive recycling rate of 60 percent2.
The Novelis Warrington plant serves as a launch production site for the industry’s first independently certified, high-recycled content aluminium designed specifically for the beverage can market. With a minimum of 90 percent recycled aluminium, the Novelis evercan™ aluminium beverage can body sheet will allow beverage companies to deliver soft drinks, beer and other popular beverages in a low-carbon footprint consumer package.
Novelis Recycling UK works closely with its European counterparts and industry organizations to increase recycling rates and meet sustainability targets across the continent. In 2010 alone, over 24 billion aluminium beverage cans were recycled throughout Europe, resulting in a total greenhouse gas savings of 2.5 million tonnes – the equivalent of taking one million passenger cars off the roads for a year.3
About Novelis
Novelis Inc. is the global leader in aluminium rolled products and the world's largest recycler of aluminium. The company operates in 9 countries, has approximately 11,000 employees and reported revenue of $9.8 billion for its 2013 fiscal year. Novelis supplies premium aluminium sheet and foil products to transportation, packaging, construction, industrial and consumer electronics markets throughout North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Novelis is a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Limited (BSE: HINDALCO), one of Asia's largest integrated producers of aluminium and a leading copper producer. Hindalco is a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Mumbai, India. For more information, visit www.novelis.com and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Novelis.
1Source – Alupro http://www.alupro.org.uk/
2 Source – Alupro http://www.alupro.org.uk/
3 Source – European Aluminium Association
Released May 23, 2013