Brazilian base metals giant Rio Tinto recently revealed plans to create an aluminum recycling plant in Quebec, Canada, that will be operational by next year.
According to recent media reports, SAI, a service provider in the metal recycling industry, noted that the plant will produce scrap remelt ingots at an annual rate of 30,000mt.
Jean Francois Laplante, Rio Tinto’s aluminum industrial product and investment director, said that as a customer of SAI, which will operate the plant on Rio Tinto’s behalf, the company can offer closed-loop solutions, such as billets sourced from its own waste, for recycled aluminum.
Rio Tinto was one of the first companies to introduce the concept of green aluminum; in fact, it even had a brief stint with Alcoa named ELYSIS, which attempted to make aluminum a carbon-free metal by almost negating greenhouse gas emissions in the manufacturing process.