Environmental Impact

Aluminium is a plentiful resource that forms about 8% of the earth’s crust.   It is mined and extracted from bauxite, which contains the compound alumina, in an energy-intensive electrolytic process. Four tonnes of bauxite contains two tonnes of alumina, which yields one tonne of valuable aluminium.   The metal is used in buildings, transport and other industrial applications, as well as packaging.     

Aluminium is the most cost-effective material to recycle, because of the huge energy savings  -  up to 95%.   For this reason, recycling is part of the normal lifecycle for large industrial products:  around 75 per cent of all the aluminium ever made is still in circulation.

Aluminium extraction, production and manufacturing use masses of energy and a lot of additional materials are discarded mining of the material. For example - four tonnes of bauxite contains two tonnes of alumina, which yields one tonne of aluminium.

Aluminium is the most cost effective material to recycle. All the scraps left over from the aluminium production process can be melted down and used again and again.

Recycling 1kg of aluminium saves up to:

• 6kg of bauxite
• 4kg of chemical products
• 14kWh of electricity