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The secondary aluminium industry needs a new name, and so does aluminium scrap, delegates told Hotline at Metal Bulletin’s 21st Recycled Aluminium conference in Dubai.
Market participants claim, with some authority, that the usage of the terms “scrap” and “secondary” are detrimental to their products in the wider marketplace.
“You don’t introduce your second wife as your second wife. You call her your wife, otherwise you’ll be looking for your third wife,” one delegate told Hotline. “So you shouldn’t say ‘secondary aluminium’ either. It’s just aluminium.”
Similarly, the term “scrap” can also have negative connotations, especially when transporting the material. Delegates said that trying to export anything with the word “scrap” attached to it is difficult due to various regulations covering the transport of waste material.
The market therefore needs new terms for both secondary aluminium and aluminium scrap, in order to properly represent the material’s value and quality. It is now possible for secondary aluminium to meet the same quality specifications as primary metal, after all.
Suggestions for new terms should be sent to Hotline, whose best effort so far is “senior aluminium”, with primary metal known as “junior aluminium”.
Which, Hotline supposes, would make scrap “teenager aluminium”.
Hotline editorial@metalbulletin.com