Novelis Inc, the US subsidiary of Aditya Birla Group company Hindalco Industries, will invest $365 million to build a highly advanced recycling centre for automotive in North America.
With an annual casting capacity of 240,000 tonnes of sheet ingot, the company expects the facility to reduce its carbon emissions by more than one million tonne each year.
The new recycling facility will be built adjacent to Novelis’s existing automotive finishing plant in Kentucky.
Closed-loop-recycling programmes
The recycling centre will enable Novelis to grow its closed-loop-recycling programmes with more automotive customers in North America.
Through closed-loop recycling, the company takes back the aluminium remaining after automotive parts are stamped from sheets and remakes it into the same product for new vehicle production.
The centre will also have the capability to process aluminium from vehicles at the end of their lifecycle. Using recycled aluminium as input material requires only 5 per cent of the energy used to make primary aluminium, thus avoiding 95 per cent of the carbon emissions associated with production.
Steve Fisher, President and CEO, Novelis, Inc said the investment will continue to increase the amount of recycled content in products, reducing carbon emissions and moving the company closer to carbon neutrality.
The new recycling centre will be equipped with industry-leading processes and capabilities, including advanced shredding and sorting technology, besides energy-efficient innovations to support the company’s sustainability goal to reduce energy intensity by 10 percent by 2026. Groundbreaking is scheduled for early 2022, with commissioning expected in 2024.
When fully operational, the expansion will add about 140 new jobs in Guthrie. This announcement is on the heels of Novelis’ October grand opening of the automotive finishing plant in Guthrie, which currently employs 150 people and will grow to 190 over the next two years.
Tom Boney, President of Novelis (North America) said The Commonwealth of Kentucky has been a great business partner for many years and has a strong, highly skilled workforce to meet the growing need for high-strength, low-carbon aluminium. Novelis had net sales of $12.3 billion in fiscal year 2021.