Weighty issues

Brian Taylor

Ford Motor Co. has announced it will order pickup truck components made with new aluminum alloys developed by Alcoa that are designed to be strong yet lightweight. Ford’s aim in using them is hardly revolutionary or even extraordinary. In the automotive sector, the aluminum, steel and plastics industries have been engaged in a decades-long battle to gain component market share based largely on the ability to meet engineering requirements while minimizing weight.

The “lightweighting” concept is by no means exclusive to the auto industry, though it has been motivated in that sector by environmentally conscious customers and the U.S. government’s CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards.

Aircraft designers seek the same goals and, thus, have developed a broad array of new alloys and composite materials that have created both challenges and opportunities for recyclers.

Scrap metal recyclers are facing their biggest change in the landscape from the automotive sector, however. Auto dismantlers and auto shredder operators constantly will update their procedures to recover these new sources of aluminum scrap as Ford’s 2015 and 2016 pickup trucks more commonly reach end-of-life status in the upcoming decade.

Overall, auto shredder operators continue to see the average weight of the end-of-life vehicle grow smaller with each model year, significantly changing their future calculations of how much metal can be recovered per vehicle.

Lightweighting also is making an impact in the material recovery facility (MRF) sector. Consumer goods packagers have embraced lightweighting, with the result that the average PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottle or aluminum used beverage container (UBC) entering a MRF weighs less with each year.

MRF operators already coping with a plunge in old newspapers, magazines and junk mail arriving on their tipping floors also are faced with the reality of UBC and PET bottle streams that may remain steady in terms of arriving units but that yield lower weights and, thus, less revenue.

The challenges of lightweighting are likely to be one of several topics touched upon at Recycling Today Media Group’s October conferences, which take place Oct. 14-16 in Chicago and Oct. 28-29 in Madrid.

If you’re reading this in time to make it to our Chicago Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference (co-hosted by ISRI’s Paper Stock Industries chapter), please consider joining us! The conference’s keynote session—one of 13 sessions being offered—looks at sustainability and circular economy goals and what they mean for recyclers.

Two weeks later, many of the same topics (including sustainability and recycling connections) will be discussed at the concurrent Paper Recycling Conference Europe and Plastics Recycling Conference Europe in Madrid.

Whether you can join us in Madrid or Chicago, find out more (including how to register) at www.RecyclingTodayEvents.com. We hope to see you soon!