EU recycling backfires as Chinese buyers snap up aluminium scrap
www.ft.com
Novelis executive says European metal sector in terminal decline despite consumers willing to pay more for recycled products

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6490396

TL;DR:

  • In a move to meet carbon reduction goals, the EU started to recycle aluminium.
  • Chinese buyers now snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it an sell it back to Europe as new metal
  • Novelis, the industry’s largest recycler, calls on the EU to curb exports of metal scrap to China and the US

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The EU’s recycling system is being weaponised against the bloc by Chinese buyers snapping up aluminium scrap, smelting it and exporting it back to Europe as newly produced metal, according to the industry’s largest recycler.

Emilio Braghi, executive vice-president of Novelis, [said] the sector risked what he described as terminal decline unless Brussels acted on its pledge to curb the export of scrap to Asia and the US.

“We have lost primary production. Now we are at risk of losing aluminium scrap,” he said, noting that Europe would be unable to meet its own environmental goals if this was the case.

EU producers pay energy prices up to four times those of their competitors, so have shifted to remelting scrap which is more energy efficient.

The recycling drive is part of EU efforts to reduce its carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, and to retain more critical materials in the bloc to avoid dependence on Chinese imports.

Unlike other parts of the world, Europe is unique in consumer behaviour and its willingness to pay more for recycled products out of a concern for the environment and climate change, Braghi said.

“We see that pull from consumers, whether they are buying a new car or they are buying an aluminium can, based on high recycled content. We don’t see that elsewhere.”

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  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
    61·
    8 days ago

    So Europe’s not interested in smelting it, but is happy to pay someone else to do so? Or are the Chinese buyers passing off the recycled aluminium as something better than it actually is?

    • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
      7·
      8 days ago

      European governments and companies want to smelt it in Europe. But due to capitalism Europe does not have incentive structures where the companies profit from doing that, so the companies are not doing the work their shareholders, the government, and their employees want them to do.

      So the companies are calling on lawmakers to design a different incentive structure that will result in European private companies performing the desired behavior.

      Meanwhile, China wants the industry so it builds the industry and the industry does what China wants.

      There is no difference in quality between recycled aluminium and freshly mined and processed aluminium as long as they are the same alloy. If Chinese companies sold a certain alloy as a different alloy, that would be corporate fraud and people wouldn’t be gormlessly complaining about it.

      So no, this is just neoliberal capitalists complaining that another economic system is more efficient and begging the government to take more money from the poor to make up for the difference.