Recycling aluminium is more than a driver of sustainability. It is essential to creating circular economy.

1. The essential contribution of
recycling in a sustainable
aluminium value chain
Catherine Athènes
Sustainability Leader, Constellium
METAL BULLETIN 24th RECYCLED ALUMINIUM CONFERENCE
Bratislava, November 22, 2016

2. Constellium is a leader in innovative aluminium-based
solutions
2
Over 10,000 full-time employees
€5.2 billion in sales
22 manufacturing sites
C-TEC, our world-class Technology Center
Headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Corporate offices in Paris, France, Zurich, Switzerland and
New York, USA
2015 key figures

3. Structured into 3 business units
3
Aerospace and Transportation
 € 1.355 billion in revenues
 #1 worldwide for aerospace plates
 #1 in the USA for large coils
Packaging and Automotive Rolled Products
 € 2.748 billion in revenues
 #1 worldwide in closure stock
 #2 in Europe and North America for can body stock
 Major player in auto body sheet: #4 worldwide
Automotive Structures and Industry
 € 1.047 billion in revenues
 #1 in Europe for large profiles
 #1 in Europe for hard alloy extrusions
 Joint #1 worldwide in Crash Management Systems

4. Impacts and benefits
of aluminium
4

5. The life cycle of aluminium products
5
Semi-
product
Bauxite
Extraction
Alumina
refining
Aluminium
smelting
Product design
and
manufacturing
Product
use
Collecting &
sortingRecycling

6. 6
Impacts and benefits along the life cycle
Resource
extraction
Aluminum
smelting
Product Use
Recycling
Semi-manufacturing:
extrusion / rolling
casthouse
Product
Manufacturing
Impacts
Benefits
Benefits

7. Aluminium: impacts and benefits along the value chain
7
 The environmental and social impact of aluminium production and use is
contrasted:
 Specific primary impacts (mining, primary metal)
 Strong downstream benefits
 Recycling saves 95% energy compared to using primary metals
 Light weight in transport saves fuel and CO2 emissions during use
 Lighter products make everyday life easier

8. Aluminium impacts
And how to minimize them
■ Improving our energy efficiency
■ Increasing recycling in the industry (less primary metal sourced)
■ Developing and promoting a standard for good practices along the value chain
8
Specific environmental & social impacts
■ Biodiversity during bauxite mining
■ Impact on indigenous populations during bauxite mining
■ Red mud storage during alumina refining
■ Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during smelting, a focus area
considering climate change

9. Aluminium benefits
…and maximize the benefits
■ Recycling
 more products recycled through joined programs
 improving closed loops
■ Reducing density further
■ Improving the performance: strength, fatigue, corrosion, formability, stiffness, conductivity, crash
9
Key beneficial properties
■ Infinite recyclability
■ Corrosion resistance
■ Lightness
■ Strength
■ Reflectivity

10. A closer look at the Life Cycle
Assessment of some key
aluminium products
10

11. Life Cycle Assessment is key in evaluating the GHG
emissions of aluminium products
CO2 emissions
0.6 t/1320 lbs
CO2 emissions
2-4 t
(4400-8800 Lbs)
CO2 emissions
0 t
CO2 emissions
0.5 t/1100 lbs
Can
8,3 t Gap
CO2 emissions / t of primary alu produced
8,8 t/19800 lbs
11

12. Life Cycle Assessment: key in evaluating GHG
impact of aluminium products
Compared with steel
Auto
CO2 emissions
- 7 t/-15400 lbs
CO2 emissions
0.6 t /1320 lbs
CO2 emissions
0.5 t/1100 lbs
CO2 emissions / t of primary alu produced
8,8 t/19800 lbs
12
8,3 t Gap
CO2 emissions
≈1-4 t ?
(2200-8800 lbs)

13. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Climate change [g CO2 eq. / can]
Effect of recycling rate for an aluminium beverage can
13
Even better with
higher recycling rates
Actual result for
2012 recycling rate

14. Robustness of LCA results for CMS vs. mass saving
and recycling rate
14
Boundary = same
impact for both
Reference
scenario
recycling rate

15. Recycling is essential…
Recycled content is not !
15

16. Recycled content: an appealing concept
For consumers who see a guarantee
that the material
is effectively recycled.
For aluminium
converters who can
claim higher recycled
content than their
competitors.
For brands which can
claim the environmental
benefit of their products
rather than the material
used.
16

17. Recycled content is not suited to metals!
 Keeps same properties after recycling
 Cannot be distinguished from virgin metal
 Infinitely recyclable!
 Has value which pays for recycling
■ Loses its properties after recycling
■ Low value of scrap/high cost of recycling
Recycled content provides an incentive to
recycle and is not limited by unsorted
scrap availability
Recycled content is not the right incentive
What may work for plastics and paper does NOT work for metals!
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18. Recycled content can be a misleading concept!
1 2 3Recycled content
includes industry
process scrap and
the part of end of life
scrap versus process
scrap is never
mentioned!
Recycled content can
only work if there is
enough available
scrap, which is
essentially dependent
on scrap produced
many years ago
Increasing recycled
content of a product is
highly likely to happen
by decreasing the
recycled content of
another one!
18

19. Is increasing process scrap intake good for the planet?
NO! What matters is end of life scrap!
Sameoutput
Metal
sourcing
Rolling/
Remelting
Product Mfg
Standard
process
40% process
scrap
recycled
content
1.0 1.67 1.0
0.67Process scrap = more material to be
transformed & remelted  higher energy use
Metal
sourcing
Rolling/
Remelting
Product Mfg
Optimized
process
”Only” 20%
process
scrap
recycled
content
1.0 1.0
0.25
1.25
When RC includes process scrap, it can be seen as a
metrics for industrial inefficiencies with no environmental
value.
1
19
Less scrap generated  less material to
be transformed & remelted
 more efficient but lower recycled content

20. End of life scrap intake is limited by its availability
20
75% of the aluminium
ever produced is still
in use
Due to the long lifespan of most (especially
larger) aluminium applications such as
buildings and transport vehicles, the available
quantity of end-of-life aluminium scrap
today is limited to what was put on the
market many years ago.
Calling for higher recycled
content will not change
scrap availability
Aluminiumintperyear
0
2 000 000
4 000 000
6 000 000
8 000 000
10 000 000
12 000 000
14 000 000
1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013
Average product life ≈ 20 years
Available for
recycling now
20 years ago
production
2
Source: European Aluminium

21. In which case higher recycled content brings no
environmental benefit.
VS.
Average recycled content for every
product
Limited availability: one product getting
more doesn’t change the overall
environmental impacts, as others get
less
Can 1 Can 2 Can 3 Can 1 Can 2 Can 3
21
3

22. Key recycling targets that
we need to achieve as an
industry together
22

23. 23
Aluminium beverage can
80%25%1992
2013
2020
71,3%
European aluminium beverage can recycling rate
USA aluminium beverage can recycling rate
56.5%
1995
54,5%
2015
HOW DO WE
IMPROVE?

24. 24
Automotive
End of life recyling of aluminium
products is already very good:
90%
recycling in
automotive
and transportation
We need to improve the quality of the
scrap and insure that with aluminium
intensive vehicles, we will increase the
amount of aluminium scrap coming back
in high value products.
1
2

25. 25
Aerospace
Internal recycling: an internal imperative
 need for a casthouse, most often integrated
 Internal alloy sorting processes to keep alloy value
1
2
3
Customer scrap recycling: already efficient
 A lot of machining scrap, high surface/mass ratio,
machining oil pollution
 Alloy scrap segregation allows for keeping more
alloy value in the loop
End-Of-Life (EOL) scrap recycling: area for future
progress
 Without alloy sorting: easily recycled in other
applications (e.g. cast parts)
 But loss of value for high-end aerospace alloys:
sorting should improve to keep value in the loop
 Technical feasibility of sorting demonstrated in the
past (PAMELA project)

26. Some recycling and
sorting technologies
26

27. Salt rotary furnace
% organic
Decoater
+
melting
Induction furnace
Reverberatory
furnace
Side well furnace
Double chamber
furnace
thickness
Chips
Clean foils
Clean coils
Sawn parts
Used Bev.
Cans
Lacquered profiles
Thermal break profiles
Melting technology mapping function of scrap
characteristics (technical and economical optimum)
 Depending on nature of scrap, different recycling technologies are
available.
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28. Principle :
 Alloy identification by spectroscopic analysis of a plasma generated by laser shots onto
the surface (LIBS : Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy)
 Scanning conveyor belt for further selective air ejection
Advantages
 Sensitive to alloy composition
 Not limited to high atomic masses
Limitations :
 Method is still under development
 Sensitive to coating, surface pollution
High technology for alloy sorting
LIBS sorting (as an alternative to X-Ray sorting)
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29. Simple technology for alloy sorting
7075
painted offcuts
YELLOW: Airware® BLACK: 7010/7040/7050/7055/7455
BLUE: 7075/7175/7475GREEN: 2024/2124/2027
Alloy families
AIRWARE®
painted offcuts
Bins for
AIRWARETM
offcuts
Bins for
2024
offcuts
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30. Conclusion
 Recycling is a key issue for aluminium sustainability as it saves a lot of
environmental impacts and value.
 The aluminium industry is already highly efficient in recycling both process and end
of life scrap
 Recycling rates and particularly end of life recycling should be our main focus and
not recycled content
 End of life scrap quality will be an increased area of focus particularly for
automotive and aerospace
 Overall, we should continue to make progress if we improve:
 Alignment of consumer behavior, collection and sorting infrastructure for
packaging products
 Sorting organization for process scrap in automotive and aerospace
 New sorting and dismantling technologies and infrastructure for end of life
vehicles and aircraft
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31. THANK YOU!