Mike Stier of Norsk Hydro offers his thoughts on how aluminum will benefit from the investment in U.S. infrastructure.

Following months of negotiation, Congress passed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) Nov. 5. The bill allocates $1 trillion, including $550 billion in addition to the funds Congress already had planned to allocate for infrastructure over the next eight years, to help rebuild roads, bridges and rail; expand access to clean drinking water; ensure access to high-speed internet; reduce the impacts of the climate crisis; and advance environmental justice, the Biden administration says.

The IIJA will invest $7.5 billion to build a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers within communities and along highway corridors to facilitate long-distance travel.

The bill also allocates $65 billion to upgrade U.S. power infrastructure, including the largest investment in clean energy transmission and the grid in American history. Thousands of miles of new transmission lines will be built to facilitate the expansion of renewables and clean energy, while new programs will be funded to support the development, demonstration and deployment of clean energy technologies to accelerate the transition to a zero-emission economy in the U.S.

This summer, the Aluminum Association sent a letter to Congress in support of the infrastructure framework that had been introduced in late June.

In that letter, Tom Dobbins, who was then CEO of the Washington-based Aluminum Association, writes, “The U.S. aluminum industry and its leaders know that this once-in-a-generation infrastructure investment will make our nation more resilient, our climate cleaner and our economy more competitive. As one of only eight critical mineral commodities recognized by the federal government as essential to all sectors of the U.S. economy, this bipartisan investment will depend on aluminum.”

The association has noted that the legislation addresses several of its infrastructure priorities, such as vehicle electrification, bridge rehabilitation, electric grid modernization, public transportation building projects and recycling infrastructure.

Recycling Today spoke with Mike Stier, vice president of finance and strategy for Oslo-based Norsk Hydro’s North American extrusion business, about how aluminum demand could benefit from U.S. infrastructure investments. Stier is based out of Phoenix.

Stier says the passage of the legislation “is exciting because aluminum hits a lot of different segments of the bill itself. Bridges, rail, electrification, the grid updates, you name it, there are opportunities for aluminum throughout there.”

He says the opportunities surrounding aluminum are direct—the metal will be use in the projects themselves—and indirect. In that second category are the shorter term investments in equipment, such trucks and trailers, machinery and scaffolding, that will be needed to gear up for this level of national investment, Stier says.

In terms of bridges and roads, he says signage and guarding provide “tremendous opportunities” for aluminum.

Stier says the metal also will benefit from the megatrend of electrification, particularly as it relates to EVs and rail, as aluminum “is a uniquely qualified material around conductivity. You have both the electrical and thermal side of that that is of benefit.”

He says, “The bill really is good news for the industry. I think this will spur near-term demand gearing up for it, as well as likely over the course of several years as this rolls out and funding gets released throughout the whole U.S.

“We envision very strong demand in the aluminum extrusion industry for the next few years at least,” Stier continues. “And now you layer in this infrastructure bill on top, I think this really props up the out years even when you get out five, seven, 10 years, etc.”

In the area of green energy and the electrical grid, Stier says he believes aluminum will benefit in a variety of ways given its ability to conduct heat and electricity. “There are a number of applications that come to mind that make sense.”

From a grid standpoint, Stier says aluminum’s conductivity makes it well-suited for high-power transmission, but the metal also will be used in controls, including the cases around electronic components and the heat sinks used in these applications.

In the green energy sector, he says the structure of solar panels is comprised predominantly of aluminum. While this is not a new application for the metal, Stier says more aluminum is likely to be used to construct panels as solar energy expands.

He points out another advantage of aluminum when it comes to green energy. “Just the fact that we are talking about renewables and green, if you will, the benefit of the recyclability of aluminum comes to play,” he says. “In a buyer’s mind, they likely favor renewable materials in how they are building these products. Aluminum is infinitely recyclable. It doesn’t lose its properties when it's recycled time after time. That is clearly a benefit that we have with the material.”

Aluminum likely will play an expanded role in EV production as it ramps up in the U.S. beyond auto sheet applications. Stier says there has been significant development to use aluminum in the chassis of EVs as well as in the component tree to support batteries and dissipate the heat that they generate.

Aluminum’s use in chassis applications reduces weight and improves crash characteristics, he says. “We engineer solutions that absorb the kinetic energy. We are able to in a very controlled way absorb that energy … so that it takes enough energy out of the impact to protect the passenger compartment.”

Stier says he expects to see a greater drive toward lightweighting in the rail sector and aluminum has a prominent role to play. “To me, anything that moves in a significant way, there is an advantage to using an aluminum product. It’s lightweight [and] you are able to carry more load because you don’t have the heavy weight associated with the materials of the cars. And the actual energy needed to move those vehicles, there is quite an advantage to using aluminum to reduce fuel consumption.”

He adds that the U.S. is behind Europe in using rail in urban areas and high-speed long-distance travel, though he says he thinks these applications “can pull on the value proposition of aluminum.”

While Stier is unable to provide market share numbers, he says, “Aluminum is significantly underutilized in rail at this point. I call that material white space. There is so much material white space there for us.”

New buildings will accompany the planned infrastructure investments as well, and Stier says aluminum will have a role to play in their construction, too. Aluminum can be used in window and door frames, curtain walls and conduits.

As existing infrastructure gets torn out, the opportunity to recycle the aluminum used in these applications will be available to Hydro and other companies, he points out. Stier says this material will fit well into the company’s value stream. “At Hydro, we have 11 recycling plants in the U.S. We are investing in another, taking it to 12.”

He is referencing the company’s plans to build what it calls a “state-of-the-art aluminum recycling plant” that will produce aluminum extrusion ingot in Cassopolis, Michigan.

The planned facility in Cassopolis represents “a key step in [Hydro’s] ambition of doubling its recycling of postconsumer aluminum by 2025,” the company says. The aluminum produced will be used in automotive and other transportation applications and for building products.

Hydro also is exploring new ways to use obsolete aluminum scrap “directly within the primary production process” at its Norwegian smelters. The firm says its smelter in Høyanger, Norway, is serving as a pilot location for the project.

Stier says Hydro’s extrusion business uses material made from 75 percent recycled content currently. He adds that the company plans to increase its use of postconsumer, or obsolete, scrap going forward. “As we get more sophisticated with the different scrap streams, it requires better segregation of types of material. What will need to be developed over time is much more sophisticated capture, segregation and processing to fine-tune those scrap streams.”

Doing so will allow Hydro to further segregate aluminum alloys by type to ensure the company is optimizing their use, he adds.

Accessing this scrap will help Hydro meet the growing need for aluminum that will result from the investments in U.S. infrastructure.

“From an aluminum materials standpoint, there is significant strength in the years, potentially decade, to come,” Stier says.

He adds that he expects the aluminum extrusions market, which totaled 6 billion pounds in 2018, to surpass that level in the years to come thanks in part to the infrastructure investments in the U.S.

The association asks the EPA to issue standardized definitions for recycling.

The Consumer Brands Association (CBA), Arlington, Virginia, has released a new report, “Set up for Failure: How the Fragmented Approach to Recycling Fails Consumers and the Environment,” which it says makes clear that standardized definitions for recycling are the first step to fixing what it calls “America’s broken system.”

In the report, CBA renews its call for federal definitions of recycling, something that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said it will take on in its impending National Recycling Strategy and the agency has not attempted since 1997. The EPA delayed its intended spring 2021 release of the strategy and is anticipated to share final copy later this month.

“We are on the clock to fix recycling in America and by America Recycles Day 2022 hope to be having a fundamentally different conversation about recycling,” says Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of CBA. “We expect to see, at minimum, a process for getting to standardized definitions in the EPA’s strategy—anything short of that fails to address the root issues plaguing our recycling system or bring meaningful change for consumers.”

The CBA says the U.S. has more than 9,800 recycling systems, each with its own unique set of rules and standards. According to the report, 71 percent of Americans said the sheer amount of recycling systems creates confusion. While 84 percent of Americans expressed concern over the current plastic waste crisis, only 20 percent reported having read their local recycling rules, increasing the likelihood that items are ending up in the wrong bin and, ultimately, the wrong place.

When asked to rate the recycling system’s performance, only 39 percent of Americans surveyed by CBA said it works well, while 36 said it works poorly and 23 percent said they didn’t know.

“Americans don’t know how well recycling works because the realities of the system are unseen by consumers who loyally place items in their curbside bins week after week,” Freeman says. “When the process is overly complicated, consumer behavior can undermine the shared outcome of increasing our recycling rates. We cannot allow consumers’ faith to erode and their confusion and frustration turn to apathy—that would be the end of recycling in America.” 

The can industry wants to increase the recycling rate for aluminum cans to 70 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2040 and 90 percent by 2050.

The Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) and its members, which include can sheet producers and beverage can makers, have announced ambitious U.S. recycling rate targets that include a 70 percent recycling rate by 2030 and a 90 percent rate by 2050. The used beverage can (UBC) recycling rate was 45 percent in 2020.

CMI, which is headquartered in Washington, has set the targets, outlining its approach for attaining them in four action pillars:

CMI says its members are committed to increasing UBCs recycling, noting that nearly 90,000 UBCs are recycled every minute in the United States, with 93 percent going from the recycling bin back to store shelf as a new can in as little as 60 days. This has enabled the aluminum beverage can to have 73 percent average recycled content on average. Increasing the recycled content of the average can reduces its carbon footprint as making an aluminum beverage can from recycled aluminum results in more than 90 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than making the container from primary material.

The CMI adds that high demand for aluminum beverage cans necessitates increasing the UBC recycling rate, which also would enhance the resiliency of the domestic aluminum supply chain.

In its effort to increase the UBC recycling rate, the CMI is touting the inherent value of the material. The association says UBCs are among the most valuable commodities in the recycling stream. While they are only 3 percent by weight of all the recyclables generated by single-family U.S. homes, they represent nearly half of the revenue of those recyclables, the CMI says. It points to a recent study that concluded that most of the material recovery facilities wouldn’t be able to operate with their current business models without the revenue from UBC sales.

Robert Budway, CMI president, speaking during an online press conference Nov. 10 to announce the industry’s recycling goals, said that if the UBC recycling rate had been 70 percent in 2020 rather than 45 percent, 25 billion more cans would have been recycled, generating more than $400 million in revenue and saving enough energy to power more than 1 million homes for a year.

CMI members supporting the targets are aluminum beverage can manufacturers Ardagh Metal Packaging, Canpack, Crown Holdings and Envases, and aluminum can sheet suppliers Constellium, Kaiser Aluminum, Novelis and Tri-Arrows Aluminum.

“CMI’s aluminum beverage can recycling goals are inspired by our member’s commitment to sustainable and responsible world class, circular manufacturing processes,” CMI President Robert Budway says. “The industry is working collaboratively to increase recycling rates to benefit not only the industry’s growth but also to strengthen the U.S. economy and play our part in planet stewardship.”

Under its first pillar of action, the CMI published a joint statement in September with the polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, and glass bottle industries in support of well-designed deposit systems. Further, CMI is advocating for a national deposit system in conversations with lawmakers, however Scott Breen, CMI vice president of sustainability, speaking during the press conference, said that while the industry would “love to see a national deposit system that is efficient and effective” because it would have the quickest and largest impact, the CMI is not “putting all its eggs in one basket.” Therefore, the association is targeting a few states where such legislation likely could pass quickly.

Under the third pillar of proper sorting, the CMI issued its fourth grant in a can capture program, funded by Ardagh and Crown in partnership with The Recycling Partnership, to Milwaukee-area facility. Collectively, these four grants will lead to equipment installed that ensure the proper sortation and recycling of 67 million additional used beverage cans annually, the CMI says.

Also speaking during the press conference, Keefe Harrison, CEO of The Recycling Partnership, Falls Church, Virginia, said, “The aluminum can industry has been committed to recycling for decades. They helped start The Recycling Partnership, and with these goals today, they are leaning in even further. We know that recycling is good for the economy and the environment, specifically carbon savings by making sure that those cans displace virgin material. That is why we are going to work hard with the industry to make these goals a reality.”

The CMI says it will publish a road map in early 2022 that will include more details on how its targets will be achieved through its four pillars.

Also released this week by the CMI and the Aluminum Association, Arlington, Virginia, was an updated "The Aluminum Can Advantage: Sustainability Key Performance Indicators 2021" report, which demonstrates the sustainability advantages of the aluminum beverage can compared with competing packaging types. The report updates several key performance indicators (KPIs) for 2020 and finds that consumers recycle aluminum cans at more than double the rate of PET bottles. Aluminum beverage cans also contain anywhere from 3-times to 20-times more recycled content than glass or PET bottles and generally are more valuable as scrap, making aluminum a key driver of the financial viability of the recycling system in the United States. This year’s report also introduces a brand-new KPI, the closed-loop circularity rate, which measures the percentage of recycled material used to go back into the same product--in this case a new beverage container. A two-page report summary is available here.

The Aluminum Association also endorsed the CMI effort to increase the UBC recycling rate. 

New facility will produce recycled-content HDPE plastic.

Austria-based packaging producer Alpla Group says it has opened its new plant for high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic recycling in Toluca, Mexico. That project was announced in September of last year.

In Toluca, Alpla invited guests including the Austrian ambassador to Mexico, Elisabeth Kehrer, and the governor of the State of México, Alfredo del Mazo Maza. The company says it took a little more than one year to build the plant, which entailed an investment of 20 million euros ($22.9 million).

The facility has been designed to produce up to 15,000 metric tons annually of recycled-content HDPE (rHDPE) in pellet form, but a planned expansion project could lift that capacity to 30,000 metric tons annually starting in the second half of 2022.

This recycled-content granules will be used to produce nonfood packaging such as for personal care and household cleaning products. “The demand for recycling material is so high in Mexico and Central America that the majority of the output will be used regionally,” Alpla says.

“We are delighted to be playing an important part in implementing a circular economy locally in Mexico with this new site,” says Georg Lässer, Alpla head of corporate recycling. “In taking this action, we are giving used plastic bottles value and are also promoting plastics collection and the development of the necessary regional infrastructure.”

Carlos Torres, Alpla regional manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, says, “We are seeing increasing momentum in the recycling market, taking one step forward in our commitment to sustainability, and the demand from our customers in the region for post-consumer recycled materials is rising. This is enabling us to already initiate an increase in our production of rHDPE in Toluca.”

Alpla already produces recycled-content polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in Mexico. Its first bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in Latin America, Industria Mexicana de Reciclaje (IMER), went into operation back in 2005. IMER is a joint venture between Alpla México, Coca-Cola México and Coca-Cola Femsa.

“By joining forces, the partners have established the infrastructure for collecting and recycling used PET beverage bottles over the past 15 years, [producing] close to 15,000 metric tons of food-grade flakes from post-consumer PET per year,” the company says.

Globally, Alpla Group says the annual capacity of its recycling company subsidiaries, joint ventures and partnerships amounts to approximately 130,000 metric tons of PET and 60,000 metric tons of other polyethylene (PE) annually.

The P&G brand is launching five collections this month in packaging, with two more collections to follow in early 2022.

Herbal Essences will be the first Procter & Gamble (P&G) brand to use Eastman Renew molecular-recycled plastic in its packaging. Starting in November, the brand will introduce five shampoo and conditioner collections in primary packaging made from Eastman Renew resins with 50 percent certified recycled plastic, which is achieved by allocating the recycled plastic to Eastman Renew materials using a mass balance process certified by ISCC (International Sustainability & Carbon Certification), Cologne, Germany.

In August, P&G, headquartered in Cincinnati, and Eastman Chemical Co., headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, announced they would collaborate on initiatives to advance recycling. According to a joint news release, the launch of Herbal Essences in packaging made from Eastman Renew materials is the first step the companies are taking to leverage Eastman’s molecular recycling technologies to advance their shared commitment to the circular economy.

Five Herbal Essences Bio:renew sulfate-free collections will use Eastman Renew materials beginning this month, while two new collections will launch in January 2022. These new packages will include standardized How2Recycle labels to clarify recycling instructions and encourage recycling behavior, the companies say. Herbal Essences will continue to offer a national recycling program across the U.S. through TerraCycle as well.

“It’s on all of us to make a difference and create a more sustainable future where plastics are truly recycled, reused and out of nature,” says Herbal Essences principal scientist Rachel Zipperian. “Making this package change to Eastman Renew materials reduces the brand’s dependence on virgin plastic and helps us bring the world one step closer to making plastic a circular resource. By including the standard How2Recycle label, Herbal Essences is encouraging people to recycle their empty bottles.”

“We are excited to see our partnership with Procter & Gamble reach consumers’ hands with the launch of these Herbal Essences packages,” says Chris Layton, Eastman sustainability director for plastics and circular solutions. “We are delivering solutions to the plastic waste problem right now and look forward to the continued collaboration with P&G as a leading partner.”

Earlier this year, Eastman announced that it planned to build a “molecular” recycling facility for end-of-life polyester products and packaging at its existing site in Kingsport to leverage that site's scale and integration. Through methanolysis, the company can convert end-of-life polyester products and polyethylene terephthalate packaging that are difficult to recycle by mechanical means into recycled raw materials that will be used to produce its specialty plastics.