Hydro will invest £2.4million in its Deeside recycling plant in the UK to increase the plant’s aluminium recycling capacity to 70,000 tonnes per year.

It will providing UK customers with low-carbon aluminium such as Hydro CIRCAL.

The investment strengthens Deeside’s position in the UK extrusion ingot market providing customers with higher recycled content in its metal from Q1 2023.

“With this investment Hydro Deeside will be able to process and recycle more complex types of post-consumer aluminium,” says Trond Olaf Christophersen, Head of Recycling in Hydro Aluminium Metal. “

The plant will recycle an additional 7,000 tonnes aluminium per year which will mainly come from the local scrap market in the region. 

“Once processed, the recycled aluminium will go to customers as Hydro CIRCAL, our brand of recycled aluminium made with a minimum of 75% recycled, post-consumer aluminium scrap.”

The post-consumer aluminium scrap volume processed in Hydro Deeside has been limited by melting furnace capacity. 

This investment will expand the melting capacity for shredded aluminium scrap, remove the operational bottleneck, reduce raw material costs and increase the volume of post-consumer scrap recycled at the plant. 

In addition, the technical upgrades to the aluminium melting furnace at Deeside will result in significantly reduced energy consumption.

“We will now be able to recycle more post-consumer aluminium scrap from our local market, reducing the reliance on import scrap,” Plant Manager Wayne Clifton in Hydro Deeside.

“The project fits well with Hydro’s overall profitability and sustainability ambitions, with reduced energy consumption. We look forward to delivering even more value-added, low-carbon products to our customers.”