Industry Committee on April 17th, 2023

[Peter Fuchs]

As I said, we certainly have the capabilities and the technicians. They are doing really in-depth, decent research here in Canada.

We'd have to come back to you on where we sit from a Canadian perspective.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, I'd be curious. I'm not looking for a critical analysis; I'm looking for a constructive way, because we have the SR and ED tax credit program and so forth. You probably exercise some use of that, but it's not the most nimble program at times and it's very difficult.

If you could get back to us on how we fit into the overall picture across the world, it would be appreciated.

[Marie-Elise Viger]

I don't have the numbers, but, for example, the Horne smelter is really the birthplace of several innovations. If you look in school books, you'll see the Noranda reactor and Noranda converter. Those are all innovations that were done at the Horne smelter. Even now, the new smelting process, which doesn't exist anywhere else in the copper industry, is being developed right here in Canada.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's good and helpful.

I'd love to hear, and I'm just trying to figure out.... I know my time is almost up.

It is emerging, especially with some of the critical minerals we have. That's also going to change quite a bit. We'd rather be in the forefront if we could, or at least address some holes if we have them, or how others are looking at this.

[Alexis Segal]

You know that in Sudbury and Rouyn, we're good at researching, and we tend to be a bit too humble.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I've got a lot of friends in Sudbury. I know that. It's a good place, 100%. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Simard.

You said something earlier that I think is important, namely that 50% of the material containing aluminum is not recovered. What do you mean by that? Can you give us the real definition of “recover”, in context, and how we could change that?

[Jean Simard]

Thank you for the question.

In fact, we recover certain percentages depending on the source of the materials. In the residential, commercial and institutional sectors, for example, we recover 35% of residual materials. In the case of cans, we recover 66% of these materials. In the shipping sector, the recovery percentage is between 80% and 90%, and in the construction sector, it's about the same. Of all these volumes, 50% of residual materials are not recovered.

The situation is like this because of technological problems. Very often, it is a question of material contamination. In fact, in the containers we recover, there may be two or three more materials than aluminum. Dividing these materials can then pose a technological problem when it comes to isolating the aluminum, which generates additional costs. As I said at the beginning, you end up with volumes that, because of the low critical mass in Canada, are not suitable for recovery.

So we are dealing with contamination and multiple materials. In the automotive industry, for example, there is a metal called zorba, which contains multiple materials. Once this metal is shredded, each of the materials must be isolated and recovered. Again, there is waste.

So it's both a technical problem and a critical mass problem. This means that research is needed to develop technologies that will optimize the recovery stage, and perhaps technologies that will allow small volumes to be processed economically. However, this is a very big challenge.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Simard, research is very strong in the Rouyn-Noranda region, as is the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region in the development of aluminum and the recycling of materials that contain it. Research has been going on for many years in your region. I imagine that you are from this region, with a name like Simard.

Do you feel that industry and the federal government are working sufficiently with industry to move research in this direction?

[Jean Simard]

This is also a question we ask ourselves, as we are focused on achieving results.

Again, I come back to the systemic and structural problem in Canada: we don't have a critical mass. We get a lot of requests from entrepreneurs in the Saguenay region, among others, who dream of setting up a system to manufacture aluminum cans from recycled aluminum, as is done elsewhere. But we don't have the critical mass.

In the United States, more than 100 billion cans are consumed each year. In Quebec, about 1.3 billion cans are consumed during the same period. That sounds like a lot, but it's not enough. We are far from the break-even point. Several years ago, we made calculations to set up a centre that would have benefited from the potential critical mass in Quebec, but that would have generated annual losses of $20 million, even if we got volumes from outside Quebec and elsewhere in Canada.

In my opinion, we need to focus on areas where we can make a difference, such as in other sectors where very good research is being done, for example in Saguenay, in the field of aluminum.

We must therefore be prudent in our investments and focus on areas where it counts.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Viger, you say that, at Glencore Canada, you use about 15% of Canadian materials in the processing that you do and that you would like to use more. What could be done in Canada to use as much Canadian material as possible?

Obviously, we'd like to know what more the federal government can do to support processing, recycling, etc. What more could the government do to help you get more Canadian materials or to give you permission to get more?

[Marie-Elise Viger]

That's a good question.

As it happens, Environment and Climate Change Canada is revising the import-export policy, but that really applies to outside of Canada. Certainly, if it becomes easier for materials...

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

When you talk about the outside world, you are talking about the countries where you are going to source your products. Is that right?

[Marie-Elise Viger]

Yes, that's right.

In fact, 75% of the electronics we recycle come from the United States, while only 10% come from Canada. If regulations make it more difficult to import products from outside the country, it will certainly slow down. However, if it's that easy to send products out of the country, you're just skirting the issue. What is produced in Canada will end up elsewhere. So it would be nice to facilitate and encourage recycling within Canada.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

The data for Canada provided to us by our analysts is from 2016 to 2019. Canada recycles 14% of its e-waste, for example, while some countries, such as Croatia, Finland, the United Kingdom and Sweden, recycle between 50% and 75% of their e-waste. These are much smaller countries than Canada, but I imagine they are able to process these materials themselves.

Do they do the processing locally, or do they export these materials for processing?

[Marie-Elise Viger]

I don't know what all the countries are doing, but we also receive material from Europe. We have confirmation of compliance with the Eurometals standard, which makes our foundry an accepted recycling site for the end of life of these materials.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Are there countries that are more sensitive to the needs of the industry in terms of the quality of the materials that are sent to you, or do they send them to you and let you sort it all out?

In general, if you compare materials from the United States and Europe, for example, are some materials better than others?

[Marie-Elise Viger]

We receive a variety of materials. All materials are sampled and analyzed to see if we can accept them and how much of them can be fed into the foundry, to ensure that the foundry always has the same volume of inputs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Ms. Viger.

Thank you, Mr. Généreux.

Mr. Gaheer, you have the floor.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for all their contributions to the committee so far.

My first few questions are for Monsieur Simard.

Can you speak about the recyclability of aluminum and whether it loses any of its properties when it's melted and used again, and generally whether it's a good product to use?

[Jean Simard]

Aluminum, some will say, is eternally recyclable or indefinitely recyclable and doesn't lose its key characteristics. It's a very sustainable material.

One of the key benefits of recycling aluminum is that you need only 5% of the energy that is required to do primary metal when you recycle aluminum. Thereby, not only do you reduce by 95% the use of energy, but you also reduce emissions in the order of 95%, which is a great achievement in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

There are complexities. As I mentioned earlier, some of the aluminum that comes back into the system needs to be segregated in terms of alloys—original alloys or series—and cannot necessarily be repurposed for the same use or for another use. There is an extra level of complexity to ensure you can optimally recycle all the metal that comes back into the stream, but increasing the use of recycled aluminum in the future to produce new material is certainly part of the world's aluminum pathway to decarbonization.

One of the key examples is what we now call “hybrid” smelters, which we will see more and more of. They are smelters producing primary metals, but they use their dilution factor to increase the use of recycled aluminum, and by doing so, they reduce their carbon footprint at the end.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you.

I'm not an expert in this area. Could you please explain the difference between the “alloys” and “series” terminology?

[Jean Simard]

The series is a type of aluminum. You have the 4,000 series, the 5,000 series and stuff like that. Basically, if you are using aluminum in an aggressively saline environment, such as an offshore situation, you will need a specific series that will not corrode in that aggressively saline environment.

Alloys use other materials, such as magnesium or lithium, depending on the final use, such as for aerospace purposes or in the construction environment. It all depends on what the end use is when you are looking at the material.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

That's great.

How can we improve the recovery rates for aluminum, especially in the sectors where it's low? You mentioned some of them during your opening testimony.