What is the aluminum recycling process?

Question

Not just cans. How is aluminum recycled and what is the process. Not the scientific formula! How its done entering the plant.

Answer 1

Aluminum scrap is ground and shredded into small chips before being melted and cast into ingots. The ingots are sent to manufacturing plants where they are molded or rolled into sheets that can be shaped into various products.  By recycling aluminium cans, it takes only 4% of the energy to recycle them than to produce them from raw materials. Saving 64 300 kWh/t. Taking the UK average price of 7.52p/kWh, this equates to a saving of £4 835/t of aluminium in energy costs and emissions of about 29t of Co2. This is enough to power a Virgin Pendolino train for 4537km, that's over 15 one-way journeys from London Euston to Manchester Picadilly.

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Answer 2

First, aluminum is shredded.  It is then melted and turned into molten aluminum.  Once it becomes molten, the used aluminum does not differ from new aluminum.  It is then molded into the new product.

    Recycling aluminum is much more energy efficient than melting new ore into aluminum because it  takes three times the energy to produce than if it was recycled.