Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the committee members for inviting me to share our experience in the circular economy.
As you know, the aluminum industry has a strong footprint in Canada, with nine aluminum smelters, most of which are in Quebec and British Columbia. The association is a founding member of the Pôle québécois de concertation sur l’économie circulaire, a Quebec centre for consultation on the circular economy. Our members are also involved regionally in a range of activities that support circularity.
My remarks will focus on two aspects of recycling: metal recycling and production by-product recycling.
Post-production metal, in other words, before it gets to the consumer—so after processing—is almost entirely reused in our plants. It has tremendous value, and is much easier to recover and incorporate back into the system. Post-consumer metal has a number of limitations, and I'll talk about that later.
The second line of reasoning has to do with production by-products, so non-metal products. Various by-products are generated, whether it be carbon, spent potlining or scum. The industry is working very hard towards its goal of zero landfill waste for these types of products.
We can now say that more than 80% of by-products are reused, recycled or recovered. The remaining materials pose a problem, one that calls for a regulatory response as much as a technical response. Their properties are less suitable, which means they require pretreatment and mixing. They also generate hazardous materials from a regulatory standpoint.
Now I'll come back to post-consumer metal, which is found in packaging, transport vehicles and buildings. That's what we call aluminum deposits. Consumption generates a variety of objects that can be recovered and reused to produce new aluminum. An aluminum can has a life cycle of about 60 days before a new can is manufactured from the same metal. It's longer for vehicles, between 10 and 12 years. In the case of a building, it takes about 50 to 70 years before the metal can be recovered.
The success or recovery rate varies from one sector to another. In Quebec, cans with a deposit have a recovery rate of 66%. In the transportation sector, the rate is between 80% and 90%. Keep in mind, however, the 10-to-12-year life cycle in the automobile sector. Lastly, in the building sector, the rate is 80%. It's important to understand that half of everything that's recovered is not reused. That's very important to know because it represents a lost resource for society and the economy. There is a lot of work being done in that area.
There's a major challenge in Canada: we don't have a critical mass. That's a structural and systemic issue. Quebec, for instance, has about 1.3 billion consumer cans a year. While that may seem high, it's actually quite low. An empty can amounts to air. For the purposes of a critical mass, the cans need to be crushed, baled and sent to a centre where the metal can be melted down. A wide range of technical complexities also come into play, such as removing the lacquer from the paint. What's more, it all has to be done in a way that's economically sustainable. Our critical mass is so small because of our small population size. As a result, solutions that may seem obvious won't work here because the necessary infrastructure would result in losses year after year.
Consequently, our metal is sent to the U.S., not far from the border, to places like Massena, New York. There it is melted down and reused. At the end of the day, it's not a bad thing because most of the plants in the U.S. run on coal, so this helps them reduce their carbon footprint significantly and thus their greenhouse gas emissions.
Beyond that, we also carry out a lot of research for other production by‑products. We have scientists looking for ways to transform residual materials into products. Rio Tinto, for instance, has nine scientific experts working on marketing and supply.
Transforming residual materials into products is good, but then, they have to serve a purpose. They often need to be repositioned in a new market where they can provide value.
That concludes my remarks. I am available to answer any questions.