TL;DR:
- In a move to meet carbon reduction goals, the EU started to recycle aluminium.
- Chinese buyers now snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it an sell it back to Europe as new metal
- Novelis, the industry’s largest recycler, calls on the EU to curb exports of metal scrap to China and the US
The EU’s recycling system is being weaponised against the bloc by Chinese buyers snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it and exporting it back to Europe as newly produced metal, according to the industry’s largest recycler.
Emilio Braghi, executive vice-president of Novelis, [said] the sector risked what he described as terminal decline unless Brussels acted on its pledge to curb the export of scrap to Asia and the US.
“We have lost primary production. Now we are at risk of losing aluminium scrap,” he said, noting that Europe would be unable to meet its own environmental goals if this was the case.
EU producers pay energy prices up to four times those of their competitors, so have shifted to remelting scrap which is more energy efficient.
The recycling drive is part of EU efforts to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, and to retain more critical materials in the bloc to avoid dependence on Chinese imports.
Unlike other parts of the world, Europe is unique in consumer behaviour and its willingness to pay more for recycled products out of a concern for the environment and climate change, Braghi said.
“We see that pull from consumers, whether they are buying a new car or they are buying an aluminium can, based on high recycled content. We don’t see that elsewhere.”
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Who cares who’s doing the recycling, as long as it’s not ending up in a landfill somewhere?
The international political tensions and experience from dependence on Russian gas should make it obvious why it’s a good idea to remain aware and vigilant on domestic production and independence and dependency on foreign actors. Both US and China are named in the excerpt, and both have been threatening the invasion of other countries. Being dependent on them for products and resources would make it harder to react in opposing ways.
Shipping scrap to China to melt it and then ship it back seems like a very long distance to traverse as well. Ship do mass, offsetting their dirty environmental impact, but local handling would be preferable.
I agree it’s not optimal, but I fail to see how it’s a ‘backfire’. Would it be preferable to be dumping it all in landfills?
Reading into it more. They have the local capacity to process it but the scrap is being sold on the export market because the Chinese can under bid them. If they dont have material to meet the local capacity the plants could shutdown, destroying or “backfiring” on their existing capabilities.
In this case it does sound like the best course of action is to at least have enough scrap to meet local capacity before they export.
If they’re shipping it to China and back then it diminishes the environmental benefits, but I don’t know the actual logistics.
It does sound like it could be more efficient, but that applies to a lot of things in our production and logistic chains.
But but but! They don’t deserve to make money from that, it would be better if we got to do the money making! So please, subsidise our energy consumption like hell so that we may compete with them on fair terms.
Also, don’t try to lower our electricity costs naturally by building more renewables, our shareholders still have stocks in coal so we can’t switch to electric furnaces.