The project has reclaimed over 50,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap back into the production process during 2015/16, preventing more than 500,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent from entering the atmosphere by not using primary aluminium material.
REALCAR involves 11 UK press shops implementing a closed-loop, segregating waste aluminium scrap so that it can be sent back into production to be re-melted into recycled aluminium sheet for use in Jaguar Land Rover vehicles.
The Jaguar Land Rover-led research project, part funded by Innovate UK, also saw the development of a recycled aluminium-based alloy which can accept a higher percentage of the recovered scrap. In 2014, the Jaguar XE became the first car in the world to use this high-strength aluminium alloy.
Recovering aluminium in this way offers huge sustainability benefits, with aluminium recycling requiring up to 95% less energy than primary aluminium production.
Nick Rogers, group engineering director, said: “Innovative projects such as REALCAR demonstrate our commitment to meeting our sustainability challenges head-on. Its success so far marks a significant step towards our goal of having up to 75% recycled aluminium content in our vehicle body structures by 2020.”
