A global supply shortage and U.S. tariffs have roiled the aluminum market this year, putting greater pressure on the United States to produce more of its own metal. Plans to build or reopen giant smelters are moving forward, but they all hinge on securing huge amounts of cheap power — at a time when data centers are chasing every last electron.
Recycling aluminum, on the other hand, uses only 5% of the energy needed to make virgin metal in smelters, and the U.S. has an abundance of scrap. The problem is that millions of tons of it still wind up in landfills, owing to the country’s spotty recycling policies and the logistical headache of salvaging high-quality aluminum scrap.
As U.S. demand grows for the versatile metal — for soda cans, solar panels, lightweight cars, power cables, and data centers — policy experts are pushing states and the federal government to adopt measures that can boost aluminum recycling rates and reduce the country’s dependence on imported and smelter-made metal.
“It’s a secure supply chain issue,” said Joe Quinn, executive director of the Center for Strategic Industrial Materials at SAFE, a think tank that published a report this month on America’s aluminum deficit.
“There are environmental benefits all day long,” he said of recycling. “But I need the metal back in the market.”
A major reason why so much aluminum winds up as waste is that mechanical recycling systems aren’t up to the task.
Aluminum often arrives lumped together with other metals like copper, brass, and titanium. It’s also difficult to identify specific alloys — blends of aluminum that contain other elements to make them stronger and more durable — that are used for certain applications, like electrical equipment or vehicle parts. U.S. scrap metal is frequently shipped overseas and sorted by hand, or shredded and melted down into low-value products.
A handful of companies are rolling out new technologies that use lasers, advanced sensors, and artificial intelligence to find treasure in the trash. The startup Sortera Technologies raised $45 million last year to build a second high-tech recycling facility, in Lebanon, Tennessee, that plucks out valuable aluminum alloys from mixed scrap metal.
A U.K.-based firm, Greyparrot, installs AI cameras in other companies’ recycling plants to track aluminum cans, glass bottles, and plastic packaging with the goal of increasing recovery rates. Mechanical sorting equipment can overlook a large portion of recyclables that move down conveyor belts, especially if the system is overburdened with material or its components are faulty, said cofounder Ambarish Mitra.
Earlier this year, Greyparrot installed its systems at Circular Services’ sprawling facility in Brooklyn, which processes most of New York City’s curbside recycling. Greyparrot determined that 89% of aluminum passing through the plant is recyclable, which is nearly double the average extraction rate for U.S. facilities, Mitra said.
“A substantial amount of money is left on the table,” he added, referring to aluminum that could be sold into secondary markets but slips through the cracks instead. “In every plant we have gone in, the yield has gone up, and the residue line — which is everything that will go into the landfill — has become leaner, because more and more extraction is going on.”
The Center for Strategic Industrial Materials has called on U.S. policymakers to adopt federal incentives and increase research funding for advanced sorting technologies. Benjamin Carlson, the center’s director, noted that using more recycled aluminum across the economy can free up supplies of virgin aluminum for sectors like military defense and aerospace that require high-purity metal.