• Q. 1 When was EAA established and why?
• Q. 2 What are the main challenges the EAA and the European aluminium industry are facing today?
• Q. 3 What is the EAA’s vision and mission in terms of sustainability?
• Q. 4 How do aluminium applications and products help reduce carbon emissions?
• Q. 5 GHG emissions are a key indicator concerning environmental sustainability. How is the industry tackling the issue?
• Q. 6 What are the key drivers for emissions reduction?
• Q. 7 Why does your industry support a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approach to products?
• >> Q. 8 Why is your industry favouring End of Life recycling vs. the recycled content concept as an indicator of recycling efficiency?
• Q. 9 How much energy is saved by aluminium recycling compared to primary production?
• Q. 10 If recycling saves more than 95% of energy when compared to the primary production; can it replace the primary production?
• Q. 11 More and more focus is set by policymakers on energy efficiency, eco-design, eco-labelling and Green Public Procurement. How is the aluminium industry positioning itself?
• Q. 12 Why is weight reduction one of the most efficient means to reduce CO2 emissions from vehicles?
• Q.13 Is it true that light cars are not as safe as heavier cars?
• Q. 14 Recycling rates for the automotive and building sectors are very high (95% and 92% respectively), while average aluminium packaging recycling rate stands at 55%.
• Q. 15 How to combine competitiveness and environmental “performance”? Beyond current activities, what do you see as future opportunities for fostering the industry’s sustainability?

Why is your industry favouring End of Life recycling vs. the recycled content concept as an indicator of recycling efficiency?

The “recycled content” assesses, for a given product, the aluminium fraction coming from recycled sources. Recycled aluminium is currently limited by the supply side, i.e. the availability of aluminium scrap from end of life products. Today, most of end of life aluminium products are already efficiently collected and recycled so that end of life recycling rate of more than 90% are already observed in the building or transport sectors. With the continued growth of the aluminium market and the fact that many aluminium products have a long lifespan, the current market demand cannot be satisfied with recycled aluminium in spite of these efficient recycling rates. In addition, requesting high recycled content within specific products may lead to lower efficient recycling routes and to higher logistic and transport impacts. Hence, the aluminium industry focuses on optimising aluminium product design for maximising their further recycling in order to maximise the scrap supply, i.e. the bottle neck of the aluminium recycling sector.