New Plant Expected to Recycle 100 Million Pounds of Aluminum Each Year
Alcoa (NYSE: AA) announced today that its $21 million Alcoa Wheel and
Transportation Products casthouse expansion at its Barberton, Ohio plant
is expected to cut in half the total amount of energy used to recycle
aluminum for forged wheels, reducing greenhouse gases and increasing the
overall efficiency and sustainability of the company’s manufacturing
process. The recycling facility, the first of its kind in North America,
uses advanced technology to produce wheels from re-melted and scrap
aluminum. Construction of the 50,000-square-foot facility began in July
2011. It is now up and running at full capacity and has created more
than 30 full-time jobs.
“Alcoa’s casthouse brings ‘green’ technology and new manufacturing jobs
to Northeast Ohio,” said Tim Myers, President, Alcoa Wheel and
Transportation Products. “Sustainability is integrated into Alcoa’s
business strategy, and this facility allows us to take our recycling
practices to a new level, recycling 100 million pounds of scrap aluminum
each year in a more energy efficient way.”
One-hundred million pounds of recycled scrap aluminum is enough to make
two million new Alcoa forged aluminum wheels. The casthouse takes chips
and solids from an existing Alcoa wheel machining plant on the same
campus in Barberton, as well as from Alcoa’s Cleveland forging plant,
and recycles them into aluminum billets. The billets are then shipped to
other wheel-processing facilities to forge into aluminum wheels.
The casthouse is expected to significantly reduce energy use through a
combination of process improvements and reduced transportation needs.
The facility is located on the campus of an existing production
facility, which has led to dramatic reductions in transportation needs,
leading to an approximately 90 percent cut in transportation-related
energy use. Additionally, Alcoa’s aluminum wheels offer advantages to
the environment and the consumer. Aluminum wheels reduce the overall
weight of the vehicle, which significantly improves fuel efficiency and
reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
“This new, more energy-efficient facility makes our 100 percent
recyclable aluminum wheels even more environmentally friendly,” said
Kevin Anton, Alcoa’s Chief Sustainability Officer. “This project is also
part of the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge, through
which we will share best practices – such as linking energy goals to
compensation – to help other companies reduce their industrial energy
intensity.”
The Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge is a program that
helps sustainable companies identify innovative energy efficient
solutions for their buildings and plants. President Obama launched the
Better Buildings Challenge to help America’s commercial and industrial
buildings become at least 20 percent more efficient over the next
decade. As a Better Buildings Challenge partner, Alcoa works with the
Energy Department to implement energy savings practices that reduce
energy waste and save money. As part of this program, Alcoa also shares
facility-level energy use data and successful strategies with other
Better Buildings Challenge partners and U.S. businesses and
organizations – helping to lead a clean, sustainable energy economy.
About Alcoa Wheel and Transportation Products
Alcoa Wheel &
Transportation Products, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, serves the
commercial vehicle, automotive, and defense markets with products used
in a range of applications including forged aluminum wheels, premium
products such as Dura-Bright®, Dura-Flange®, LvL ONE® and M-Series™
medium truck wheels, as well as a variety of other aluminum components
for these markets. AWTP is composed of three divisions: Commercial
Vehicle Wheels, Forged Specialty Wheels and Transportation Products. It
employs 1,600 people at 14 locations worldwide. More information can be
found at www.alcoawheels.com.
About Alcoa
Alcoa is the world’s leading producer of primary
and fabricated aluminum, as well as the world’s largest miner of bauxite
and refiner of alumina. In addition to inventing the modern-day aluminum
industry, Alcoa innovation has been behind major milestones in the
aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial
transportation, consumer electronics and industrial markets over the
past 125 years. Among the solutions Alcoa markets are flat-rolled
products, hard alloy extrusions, and forgings, as well as Alcoa® wheels,
fastening systems, precision and investment castings, and building
systems in addition to its expertise in other light metals such as
titanium and nickel-based super alloys. Sustainability is an integral
part of Alcoa’s operating practices and the product design and
engineering it provides to customers. Alcoa has been a member of the Dow
Jones Sustainability Index for 11 consecutive years and approximately 75
percent of all of the aluminum ever produced since 1888 is still in
active use today. Alcoa employs approximately 61,000 people in 30
countries across the world. For more information, visit www.alcoa.com,
follow @Alcoa on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Alcoa
and follow Alcoa on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Alcoa.
Alcoa
Investor Contact:
Kelly Pasterick, 212-836-2674
Kelly.Pasterick@alcoa.com
or
Media Contacts:
Christa Bowers, 212-836-2605
Christa.Bowers@alcoa.com
or
Alcoa Wheel and Transportation Products
Sarah Factor, 216-641-4381
Sarah.Factor@alcoa.com