It is not so common for materials companies to work directly together with product designers — without a manufacturer or brand in between — to create objects for an exhibition. During Milan Design Week last week, Hydro took the opportunity, and Jacob Nielsen, Director Communication in Hydro Extrusions, explains why:
— It was to demonstrate how early cooperation between us as a materials and production specialist can provide value and create better products together with the designers when we are involved early in the design phase. The exhibition featured our material, Hydro CIRCAL 100R, which is the world’s first recycled aluminium made entirely from recycled post-consumer scrap. That means scrap that has lived a life in the product and then has been discarded. In this way, you get a material which has an extremely low carbon footprint — below 0.5 kilo CO2 equivalents per kilo of aluminium.
— One interesting fact about aluminium, that most people are not aware of, is that there are two types of scrap sources to produce recycled aluminium. They can be divided into scrap that comes from a product that has been in use and reaches the end of life and scrap that comes as a natural result of the production processes in the aluminium components value chain. When we talk about Hydro CIRCAL 100R being made with 100% post-consumer scrap, this is real, 100% recycled aluminium. The metal has lived a previous life in a building façade, in beverage cans, and car parts, have been collected, sorted, shredded remelted and used again in new products. In some places, you will see advertisements for 100% recycled aluminium, when in reality the source of the scrap is just waste which was generated in the production process.
What did you show?
— We tasked seven world-renowned designers to create objects with the material. The only limitation they had was that everything should be made out of aluminium extrusions. When you design a product, you really define not only the functionality and visual aspects of the product but also its recyclability, which is why the designers could only use one material and had to avoid permanent joints. One common challenge when recycling products is of course that they are often difficult to take apart, so you cannot separate and recycle the individual materials at the end of the product’s life. So, in the 100R exhibition, all the designs were also 100% recyclable.
To produce recycled aluminium only containing post-consumer scrap, Nielsen continues, is complicated.
— We’ve developed the technology to do so over many years and have invested a lot in this work. A common challenge with recycling aluminium is that this is not enough to know that the scrap you get your hands on is aluminium. You also need to know what alloy it is in order to control the properties of the recycled aluminium. Hydro’s technology allows for automated, high-speed sorting, shredding and cleaning of the scrap.
— The infrastructure for making the valuable post-consumer aluminium scrap available for recycling is quite immature. So, the availability of post-consumer aluminium scrap today is limited. We’re running projects to take back used aluminium from, for example, building facades that are being renovated and from car batteries and then use that scrap to create recycled aluminium.
So, given all this, 100R is currently in limited supply?
— Yes. To explain what we were doing in Milan, we like to say that in the same way as car brands are launching their concept cars in automotive fairs, we are now launching this very special material. In a few years, it will be more available than it is today. That said, Hydro is also offering other recycled products; Hydro CIRCAL 75R — though also limited — consists of 75% reused scrap and has for years been the benchmark recycled aluminium product in the industry.
How will you continue to develop 100R onwards?
— Now, it is all about scaling up. The production capacity is at an industrial scale but there is much higher demand than we are able to meet. We also have more exciting projects and collaborations in the pipeline.
— So far, the objects in 100R are only for show and one-off prototypes that cannot be purchased. With that said, I would not be surprised if any brand would be interested in launching them but that is only speculation from my side.
After Milan, how will you continue to improve your sustainability work?
— Hydro has an extensive sustainability strategy which covers both climate and environment, but also social which is an area that is getting increased focus, to make a positive impact on the societies around us. The production of aluminium obviously requires a lot of energy, so we are working systematically to reduce fossil energy sources in our production processes and aim to be a net-zero company by 2050 or earlier.
For the renovation of its office in Vetlanda in southern Sweden, SAPA — a global brand and a part of Hydro, offering innovative building systems in aluminium for various buildings, including the mentioned CIRCAL 100R — turned it into a pioneering project.
— It’s among the first ones in the world with a 100% recycled aluminium façade, Hanna Bouveng, Communication Manager, explains. It’s also the first project with a completely new system for facades, windows, and doors for the Nordics, which means less C02 impact but also with much more design possibilities and higher performances.
Circularity, Bouveng continues, is the main topic of the discussions in the industry. One big challenge with the renovation project was that the company got to use the system in its building before launching it.
— We didn’t have any manuals at the beginning as this still was in R&D, and to build a project during the innovation phase was a challenge. We collaborated even closer with our customers, and we learned a lot in the process regarding their operations.
How is the scalability of the material used?
— The scalability depends on the availability of the post-consumer scrap, and it requires the entire industry to collaborate on the full cycle of circularity. This is something we’re currently working on as well, having a complete business concept fulfilling all aspects of circularity. We’re only in the beginning of the journey.
What are the pros and cons when using it?
— The pros are definitely the circularity aspect; we’re not only recycling aluminium but also making sure that the components on our façade system are recyclable. In the R&D process, one important pillar is the recyclability. So, we take this into consideration from the start, both from a material perspective and from a construction and production perspective. We also continuously strive to use recycled material for all integrated materials and push our suppliers. An example of this is that we now use recycled PET bottles for our thermal strips.
— The cons are that there are not enough players working with the full circularity aspect. The industry needs to level up even further. From our side, we’ve introduced Hydro CIRCAL 75R in 2021, and using 75% of post-consumed aluminium for all our products has saved 90 million kg C02 since 2020. The next step is that all projects eventually will be produced with 100% recycled material, Bouveng concludes.
