Emirates Global Aluminium plans to build a 150,000 tonnes-per-year aluminium recycling facility, the company’s first and set to be the largest in the UAE.
EGA intends to market recycled aluminium under the product name “EternAL,” the company announced in a statement.
The facility will process post-consumer aluminium scrap such as used window frames, as well as pre-consumer aluminium scrap from extrusion production, into low-carbon, high-quality aluminium billets, EGA said.
Aluminium scrap for the recycling facility will mainly be sourced from the UAE and the wider region. More than half the aluminium scrap generated in the GCC is currently either disposed of or exported, the statement added.
Feasibility studies for the project are underway. Production ramp-up could begin as early as 2024, the company revealed.
Production of aluminium through recycling requires a fraction of the energy consumed to produce new primary aluminium, with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of production as a result. The International Aluminium Institute forecasts that recycled aluminium will account for up to 60% of global aluminium supply by 2050, the statement pointed out.
Aluminium is light, strong, durable, electrically and thermally conductive, formable, and infinitely recyclable. These qualities make it ideal for applications from electric vehicles to wind farms to mass transit systems that are essential to reach net-zero while improving living standards. The International Aluminium Institute forecasts that global aluminium demand will rise by 50 to 80% by 2050 driven by global commitments to reduce emissions while furthering economic growth.