Sustainable production, as called for in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, requires significant progress in the efficient use of resources. The production of aluminum alloys from scrap requires only about 5% of the energy used in extraction from ores and reduces the carbon footprint by a comparable value. It is estimated that the amount of aluminum available for recycling in Europe will double by 2050. On the one hand, this offers the opportunity to move metallurgy closer to a circular economy, but on the other hand, it is a huge challenge because of the large volumes of end-of-life scrap (for example, end-of-life cars) and the high levels of contamination they contain.
