Recycling of Aluminium in Cars - Today and Tomorrow

Aluminium is recycled from old cars to more than 95 % and the recycled material provides an important source for new casting alloys for automotive applications. The growing use of aluminium in the production of future models, the changing recycling technologies for old cars and more sophisticated alloy separation techniques currently under development have a strong impact on the recycling for aluminium.

New recycling routes, in particular the recycling of wrought aluminium components into new aluminium sheets or extrusions are envisaged and evaluated both from an economical and an ecological point of view. The ease of recycling and the fact that recycling of aluminium from old cars will remain a commercially interesting business also in the future present an additional strong driving force for an increased application of aluminium in future car body designs.