Metal recycling and processing of recyclables

Regardless of whether scrap, plastic or paper – recycling preserves resources and helps the environment. At the same time, recycling valuable substances is usually cheaper than initial production. In particular metals are gaining importance for the economy, since many metals can be recycled any number of times without sacrificing quality. Plastic can be melted down a few times only, then the material can no longer be used. This type of downgrading does not apply to metals.

Considering that Europe produced around 10.4 million tonnes of aluminium in 2014, of which a proportion of approximately 26 per cent was recycled aluminium, these figures speak for themselves. (Source: http://www.aluinfo.de/startseite.html)

In secondary production, significant amounts of energy can be saved with all (scrap) metals as compared to primary production. For example, recycling of aluminium scrap consumes only 5 per cent of the energy needed to produce aluminium from bauxite.

The situation is similar for copper. After processing, recycled copper hardly differs from the raw material itself. Large quantities of it are used in the construction and electrical industry, where the quite soft while at the same time ductile material serves as heat and electricity conductor.

The annual demand, e.g., for aluminium was approximately 10.9 million tonnes in Europe in 2014. (Source: http://www.aluinfo.de/startseite.html) Unfortunately, however, metals don’t grow on trees.

In Austria, there are plants with a minimum capacity of around 3.29 tonnes per year available for the recycling of separately collected scrap metals. The predominant use of scrap metals takes place in plants for the production of iron and steel. This concerns primarily the “iron and steel waste, contaminated” waste category.

In terms of quantity, the most important waste category used in plants for the production of non-ferrous metals is aluminium scrap, followed by copper scrap and aluminous light-alloy skimmings. (Source: Bundes-Abfallwirtschaftsplan 2017)

Recycling does not stop at the metal or plastic bin. So, what happens with metals that are not collected separately? They are collected and incinerated with residual waste and then end up in the grate ash and bottom ash. This bottom ash consists of largely inert, i.e., no longer reactive material with a fraction of scrap from different metals as well as small quantities of incompletely burned residual waste. However, that does not mean that these metals are lost for the recycling process.

More and more waste and recycling companies have realized that processing this bottom ash is an opportunity to expand their business activities and generate additional revenue. The volume and costs of landfill waste are reduced and secondary raw materials are fed back into the production process.

High-quality raw materials are produced using complex and multi-stage treatment processes to achieve the necessary quality in the required volumes. High-tech processes are used to tap into new markets and exceed limits. This turns traditional waste disposers into multi-national service providers and producers of high-quality secondary raw materials.

The above service providers and new producers of secondary raw materials, however, are faced with an IT problem. Let us explain this briefly:

In a thermal waste treatment plant, waste is delivered for processing. The waste is incinerated and, after that, does not exist anymore – at least in accounting terms. However, the recyclers turn this “nothing” into an asset and – to make it available for a business process again – must include it in the system.

This process is called reverse logistics and not every system can map this process.

Due to our longstanding experience, Environmental services has been able to map these reverse logistics in the system and thus reliably provides the industry-relevant processes out of the box.