Novelis – The World’s Largest Recycler of Aluminum
Recycling is the cornerstone of Novelis’ purpose-driven commitment to sustainable manufacturing and carbon reduction. As the world leader in aluminum recycling, Novelis is at the center of the circular economy for aluminum with one of the industry’s highest percentages of recycled content in our products. This helps our customers achieve their sustainability goals and provides consumers the environmentally friendly products they desire.
Our company has been on the journey to increase recycled content for more than a decade and has made great strides, going from 30% to 63% today, which is a huge accomplishment. But we’re not stopping there. To reach our goal of 75% we will have to work faster and harder. Our focus on recycled content is directly tied to our goal to reduce our carbon intensity to 3 tonnes of CO2e per tonne of flat rolled product shipped and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. We are playing a critical role in scaling circularity and decarbonizing our industry, advancing the long-term decarbonization goals of our customers.
Novelis is the largest, most technologically advanced recycler of aluminum in the world. Across four continents, we recycled 4.3 million tonnes of aluminum during our last fiscal year.
The world is moving fast on the topic of sustainability, and in particular carbon and circularity, and we need to move faster. To maintain our sustainability leadership and deliver the low-carbon solutions our customers need, we launched Novelis 3×30, an initiative that will focus our entire company to achieve ambitious goals for increasing recycled content and reducing carbon intensity.
- push the boundaries of by setting a target of 75% recycled content in our products;
- maximize our recycling capacity and invest in technologies that will enable us to expand the types of aluminum scrap we use;
- create new closed-loop partnerships with our customers to ensure we bring aluminum scrap from their processes back into its highest value uses;
- innovate new alloys that allow for increased use of recycled content; develop advanced sorting technologies to prepare for end-of-life automotive aluminum recycling as new aluminum-intensive vehicles reach their consumer use limits; and
- actively collaborate with our customers, suppliers, partners and consumers around the globe to increase recycling rates, particularly in the U.S.
The innovative, high-recycled-content alloys we’ve brought to market over the past decade have enabled us to more than double the amount of recycled aluminum in our products, reaching an average of 63 percent recycled content at the end of our 2024 fiscal year.
As the world’s largest recycler of aluminum, we have a unique role to play in the aluminum value chain. We know that keeping aluminum “in the loop” is the best way for our industry to decarbonize.
Novelis operates six dedicated recycling centers in North America, Europe, Asia, and South America, as well as integrated recycling operations at nine of our aluminum rolling plants worldwide.
Why Recycle Aluminum
As one of the most sustainable materials in the world, aluminum is 100% recyclable and can be recycled repeatedly without degrading its inherent value, making it ideally suited for the circular economy.
Aluminum beverage cans and bottles are some of the most prevalent sources of end-of-life recycled aluminum and offer a textbook example of the benefits recycled aluminum delivers in creating a circular economy.
- Aluminum cans have a higher recycling rate and contain much more recycled content than either plastic or glass beverage containers.
- The value of the aluminum cans collected in a typical consumer recycling bin exceeds the combined value of the steel, plastic, paper, glass and other materials in the bin.
Aluminum beverage cans and bottles are some of the most prevalent sources of end-of-life recycled aluminum and offer a textbook example of the benefits recycled aluminum delivers in creating a circular economy.
- Aluminum cans have a higher recycling rate and contain much more recycled content than any other beverage container.
- Aluminum cans are far more valuable than glass or plastic, helping make municipal recycling programs financially viable (https://www.aluminum.org/Recycling).
End-of-life recycling in the automotive industry also offers great advantages, as closing the loop preserves the value of the alloy, minimizes environmental impact, and creates a secure supply chain.
- Building a circular economy with aluminum is a focus for Novelis and returning end-of-life scrap to its source is key to become more efficient and reducing the need for more raw material.
- To help the automotive industry reduce carbon emissions and ultimately achieve carbon neutrality, as well as reduce waste and preserve natural resources, Novelis works in partnership with automakers to create and implement customized circular economy programs.
Closed-loop recycling allows us to take back as much of the aluminum created by our customers’ production processes as possible, turning it directly back into the same product over and over.
Closed-loop recycling preserves the value of the alloy, reduces transportation costs, minimizes environmental impact, and establishes a more secure supply chain.
Novelis partnered with Ford to create the world’s largest closed-loop-recycling system. Shipments of highly specialized automotive coils travel via specially designed Penske trucks to Ford stamping plants in the U.S., delivering them to the front end of the production cycle. These same trucks then go to the other end of the facility to collect aluminum remnants from the automaker’s stamping processes for delivery to Novelis’ recycling operations to be remade back into new automotive-specific aluminum sheet coils.
Why does this matter? For one, this partnership enables Novelis to capture application-specific aluminum alloys that have never been mixed with other, less valuable aluminum scrap types. Without a closed-loop system, these production remnants – estimated to be between 35% to 40% of the amount of metal delivered to Ford – were sold to third-party recyclers and mixed in with other types of aluminum. The value of that auto sheet – much higher than any other type of aluminum – was lost.
By partnering with Novelis, Ford now recycles and reuses more than 90% of its aluminum scrap, which is enough to produce 30,000 F-150 truck bodies each month. Through closed-loop recycling, Ford reduces its carbon footprint while also securing a steady, reliable source of a critical component of its flagship product.
Another example of the innovative closed-loop recycling systems Novelis has created to drive the circular economy is our partnership with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Novelis efficiently delivers aluminum from our rolling and finishing facilities in Germany and Switzerland to JLR’s automotive production site in the United Kingdom via a dedicated railway service. From there, the excess aluminum scrap collected from the manufacturing process is then transported back to Novelis’ rolling facilities and remelted into the same automotive aluminum – in essence, closing the loop. This rail transport system enables us to reduce carbon equivalent emissions of our supply chain by 80% compared to standard over-the-road transport.
Novelis operates six dedicated recycling centers in North America, Europe, Asia and South America, as well as integrated recycling operations at nine of our aluminum rolling plants worldwide.
Nachterstedt, Germany
The Novelis recycling center located in Nachterstedt, Germany, is the largest aluminum recycling operation in the world.
Latchford, UK
Our Latchford recycling center is Europe’s largest used aluminum beverage can recycling plant and Europe’s largest closed-loop recycling operation for automotive aluminum rolled products.
Yeongju, South Korea
Our recycling center in Yeongju is Asia’s largest aluminum used beverage can recycling facility. Since its opening in 2012, it has processed more than 120 billion used beverage cans.
Greensboro, Georgia, USA
Novelis operates a stand-alone, dedicated recycling facility in Greensboro, Georgia. This site is also where we pioneer many of our new recycling technologies.
Berea, Kentucky, USA
Our recycling center in Berea, Kentucky, is one of the world’s largest plants dedicated to aluminum beverage can recycling, taking in approximately 20 percent of the United States’ used aluminum beverage cans, melting them down and producing aluminum sheet ingots for our North American operations.
Guthrie, Kentucky, USA
In Guthrie, Kentucky, Novelis operations a highly advanced recycling center for automotive customers that enables more closed-loop recycling programs in North America. The facility includes capabilities to process aluminum from vehicles at the end of their lifecycle.
Pindamonhangaba, Brazil
Our Pinda Recycling Center in Brazil is the largest recycling facility in South America.
Novelis also has recycling operations in the following plants:
- North America: Oswego, New York; Uhrichsville, Ohio; Davenport, Iowa; Richmond, Virginia; Russellville, Kentucky
- Europe: Pieve, Italy; Voerde, Germany; Neuss, Germany
- Asia: Ulsan, South Korea