Every aspect of modern industry involves the emission of CO2. Today more than ever before, the environmental impact of our products and services is right at the top of the ethical agenda. In principle this is a good development, but is still only the tip of the iceberg. In the long-term, we need to ensure the responsible handling of all natural resources.

Increasing pressure is being applied to the international political stage, over claims to genuine “sustainability”. A challenge that the German Association of the Aluminium Industry (GDA), has also taken up.

It’s a matter of defining a balance between the marketing and strategic demands of the industry on the one hand and ecologically responsible manufacturing processes on the other. For aluminium in particular, this means using both the available and recycled resources of the metal with entrepreneurial forward-thinking coupled with a sense of social responsibility, in keeping with the dictates of supply and demand.

Certain indicators are barely relevant and can even be misleading. For example the claim of a “recycled metal content” is no help in reaching this target, since the degree to which a product contains recycled metal does not go far enough in making an impact on the sustainability discussion.

GDA Managing Director Stefan Glimm explains: “In our opinion, this form of ‘greenwashing’ is an inadequate response when dealing with the justified demands of consumers for information and it does not address ecological issues in a responsible manner“.

Green Cycling is the true alternative
As a virtually infinitely recyclable material, aluminium has always occupied a future-oriented role. About 75 percent of all aluminium ever made has been in the metal loop since the year 1888, constantly being reprocessed for new products. This has been confirmed by the global “Material Flow Analysis” reviewed by the Yale University in the USA, published annually by the International Aluminium Institute.*

There is hardly any other material (just think for a moment about the 1.1 trillion barrels of oil extracted since the 19th century) that is still in the material loop, accounting for three quarters of the total original amount. For metals such as aluminium, sustainable action means repeatedly reprocessing the material and feeding it back into the cycle for new applications. Previous surveys conducted by the Organisation of European Aluminium (OEA) and the GDA demonstrate that the overall recycling rate for aluminium in Europe is more than 70 percent. In the automotive and construction sectors, this rate is even as high as 95 percent; in the packaging sector, the rate in Europe is still 50 percent.

Sources of raw material right on our doorstep
Aluminium can be found in a vast range of products, which represent important sources of the raw material for our future. An amount of almost 200 million tonnes of aluminium alone is today incorporated in architectural and building products – with a service life of 30 years or even longer. The average life of aluminium in products is around 30 years.

As long as materials like aluminium can be economically and ecologically reprocessed from old products, the scrap material will be processed into new products within a very short time. There are no ifs and buts: it represents a virtually perfect reprocessing and production cycle. A sustainable aluminium processing loop is an excellent way of protecting resources.

How credible are marketing slogans?
The aluminium industry is coming under ever-increasing pressure from building authorities and food and drink manufacturers to specify the recycled metal content of its products, in order to enhance salability whilst adhering to ecological issues in an eye-catching way.

Simple-to-grasp advertising messages like “household foil made from 100% recycled aluminium”, are all the rage, yet if all aluminium products were to claim this in order to appear “greener”, it would in fact become necessary to artificially increase the proportion of production scrap. Only in this way would it be possible to achieve the higher share of recycled metal necessary to label an end-product truly 100% "green".

This gives rise, however, to the question of whether this production approach would actually make ecological common sense? After all, in this case the resource efficiency would be exactly the opposite of what industry and society should be aiming for. Stefan Glimm comments: “Even if we do have the technology to manufacture a given product entirely from recycled scrap, this is ecologically and economically paradoxical. The prices for secondary raw materials, and thus the final market price, would rise considerably if all manufacturers were to adopt this approach.”

What’s more, the simple fact is that there is not enough aluminium scrap available to satisfy today’s total demand for aluminium. In 2008 the total aluminium demand worldwide amounted to 47 million tonnes. This demand was met by 37 million tonnes of primary aluminium and just 10 million tonnes of available scrap.

Two factors are of essential importance in this regard: the growth of the market over the past few decades and the useful life of aluminium (about six months for a beverage can, twelve years in cars, and in excess of 50 years in railway systems and the construction sector).  In the short term this has resulted in the current demand for aluminium exceeding the availability of this resource from scrap metal.  A massive increase in the demand for aluminium scrap would mean a drastic rise in the purchase costs for used metal – without even the slightest ecological benefit. Therefore - not all attention-grabbing ‘green’ messages are supported by a long-term sustainability factor.

Artifical markets are no solution
Today’s prices for aluminium scrap are essentially based on a generally optimised aluminium-recycling market. The creation of “artificial” markets and material flows designed to satisfy specific inputs for a given product, must inevitably lead to a suboptimal allocation of the resources, resulting in increases in overall transportation distances and in the related burden on the environment.

To improve the ecological sustainability of aluminium further still, it makes much more sense to further develop the methods of collection and recovery of aluminium products at the end of their useful lives. From an overall ecological perspective, it is inappropriate to accuse a manufacturer of being unethical simply because his products contain only a small share of recycled aluminium. It could, however, be suggested that he is doing too little to promote the sustainability of production and consumption if he is not making every effort to ensure that the aluminium is fed back into the material loop after it has been used.

Greater awareness for genuine recycling
Stefan Glimm of the GDA summarises: “Instead of chasing after simple recycling messages and propagating ecologically questionable indicators such as ‘recycled metal content’, the aluminium industry pleads the case that the material loop should be closed further still to promote greater sustainability in the production and consumption of the metal.

“This path enhances sustainability and benefits the environment. Ultimately, it also ensures that both the aluminium industry and its customers retain their credibility by actively supporting ecological processes which contribute towards sustainable production and consumption. This should be our common goal.”