Novelis Inc, the overseas subsidiary of Hindalco, will invest $365 million to build a highly-advanced recycling centre for automotive sector in North America.
With an annual casting capacity of 2,40,000 tonnes of sheet ingot, the company expects the facility to reduce its carbon emissions by more than one million tonnes each year.
The new recycling facility will be built adjacent to Novelis' existing automotive finishing plant in Guthrie, Kentucky, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
Groundbreaking for the new facility is scheduled for early 2022, with commissioning expected in 2024. When fully operational, the expansion will add approximately 140 new jobs in Guthrie.
In October last year, the company announced opening of the automotive finishing plant in Guthrie, which currently employs 150 people and will grow to 190 over the next two years.
At current exchange rate, $365 million is little over Rs 2,698 crore.
The centre will enable Novelis to grow its closed-loop-recycling programmes with more automotive customers in North America. Through closed-loop recycling, the company takes back the aluminum remaining after automotive parts are stamped from sheets and remakes them into the same product for new vehicle production.
The centre will also have the capability to process aluminum from vehicles at the end of their lifecycle. Using recycled aluminum as an input material requires only five per cent of the energy used to make primary aluminum, thus avoiding 95 per cent of the carbon emissions associated with production.
"Novelis aims to be the world's leading provider of low-carbon, sustainable aluminum solutions that advance our business, industry and society toward the benefits of a circular economy," Steve Fisher, President and CEO of Novelis, said.
"Through this investment, we will continue to increase the amount of recycled content in our products, reducing our CO2 emissions and moving us closer to carbon neutrality," Fisher added.
The new recycling centre will be equipped with industry-leading processes and capabilities, including advanced shredding and sorting technology, as well as energy-efficient innovations to support the company's sustainability goal to reduce energy intensity by 10 per cent by 2026.
