Talk:Aluminium recycling

Can someone please add information about how much aluminum is NOT recycled in the United States each year. I'm looking for a statistic, and believe that sadly we still seem to be failing to recycle the vast majority of our aluminum.

thanks...


 * 31% of new aluminum comes from recycled scrap aluminum. The main reason this is not higher (educated guess) is because it's easier to make new aluminium then it's to find, collect, identify, and recover large amounts of scrap aluminium. IIRC most of the scrap aluminium that's recycled now comes from pre-consumer factory waste. The good news though is that once the aluminium is made it can sit in a scrap yard for 100 years and still be as good as new when finally recycled... Because most aluminum alloys do not rust or corrode... You could be drinking out of an recycled aluminium can that was made using 200 year old scrap... In fact it might be better to make as much new aluminium as possible right now, because in 25 or 50 years energy costs could double or triple. I'd like to know how much scrap we have stock pied. --98.214.11.170 (talk) 07:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I have an issue where there's a slight contradiction in the article. In the advantages section of the article, it states that it is cheaper to recycle than to produce new aluminum. In the disadvantages, it states that it is cheaper to produce new than to recycle. Which is it?--Userjack6880 (talk) 22:45, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It mainly depends on how hard or easy it is to separate the aluminium parts from the stuff that's not. Things like aluminium cans or gutters are easy to recycle and things like hard disk drives are much harder, because you have to separate all the non aluminium parts before you can melt it down. In the first paragraph of the article it says "31% of all aluminium produced in the United States comes from recycled scrap.", if you read between the lines it implies that 69% of scrap aluminium is, at the present time, too difficult to reclaim. --98.214.11.170 (talk) 08:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This article contains a few real bummers. For one, there is no 500 year old aluminum. Aluminum practically does not exist as a free metal in nature maybe except under very rare conditions. It is abundant in form of chemical compounds like oxides, hydroxides etc.. The first metallic aluminum was produced in 1825 by Oersted. For another, 500 year old aluminum would indeed show signs of strong chemical degradation. While aluminum oxide layers are fairly stable, they do degrade in wet environments and especially in contact with other metals. Aluminum is strongly attacked in environments with pH<7.

Citation 5 does not support the statement regarding cost of recycled aluminum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.188.89 (talk) 02:51, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Somebody who understands the engineering and economic aspects of aluminum recycling needs to completely rewrite this article which is essentially an ideology piece by someone who is not knowledgeable of the industry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.47.14.162 (talk) 21:57, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Though iron is mentioned this was as if of little significance. I thought that iron was a common contaminant and if it got into the aluminium it was impossible to remove and greatly rteduce the value of the resulting aluminium. 81.99.126.52 (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The furnace temperature for re-melting the aluminium (750°F ± 400°C) must be incorrect. It can't be 400 degrees celsius as the M.P. of alumnium is approx. 660 degrees celsius. <123.243.192.222 (talk) 09:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)>
 * Fixed old vandalism. Vsmith (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

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Is the quality of recycled aluminum equal to the quality of new aluminum?
Is the quality of a soda can made from recycled aluminum equal to the quality of a can made from new aluminum, for example? I mean does the recycled aluminum have impurities that lower its quality? Please answer in the article.CountMacula (talk) 00:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Pro-industry figure
Recycling aluminium uses about 5% of the energy required to create aluminium from bauxite ...

This has a citation to:
 * Aluminum: The Element of Sustainability A North American Aluminum Industry Sustainability Report by The Aluminum Association. September 2011.

This is hardly a neutral document. I wouldn't bet more than my lunch on this, but it's highly likely they have cooked the statistic above by only counting the energy cost for recyling after the aluminum arrives at the primary recycling facility.

It's quite likely they are neglecting all the energy required to get it there (which could be considerable). In addition to the last mile problem, the aggregate aluminum waste is often shipped internationally to foreign countries.

Better source needed. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Is aluminum foil fire retardant? 2603:9004:9F0:2380:5972:BC2D:93A3:9877 (talk) 22:53, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: WRIT 340 for Engineers - Fall 2023 - 66816
— Assignment last updated by 1namesake1 (talk) 04:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Missing and Contradictory Data
In the recycling rates data, the section states that Brazil has topped the charts many years in a row at 98.2%, but it also provides data that shows Germany's recycling rate at 99%.

The table is default organized alphabetically, when it could be organized better by rate.

The table only shows rates for European countries, when countries like Japan and Brazil are mentioned in the body. Denialdan (talk) 04:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)