Novelis invests US$ 4 million in network to collect aluminum cans
Valor Econômico
To enter a new segment of supply of used aluminum cans and expand its base of suppliers of material for recycling, currently concentrated in the wholesale, Novelis is creating a new business unit. It is a division dedicated to work in retail formed by hundreds or thousands of collectors that collect cans and pass them to cooperatives, small scrap dealers and warehouses. The investment in the project, which will be ready until the middle of the year, is of US$ 4 million. This investment will be added to the US$ 15 million that the company has just invested in the installation of a new furnace and other facilities in Pindamonhangaba (SP), increasing its recycling capacity from 150 thousand to 200 thousand tons per year. The new furnace went into operation this month.
According to Roberta Smith, recycling business manager of Novelis, with this initiative, the company builds a new platform of supply, the retail, that she considered very important for its growth strategy in the recycling business in the country. The company, besides being the world leader in the manufacture of aluminum rolled products, is in the same position in the recycling. The executive, responsible for the implementation and for the financial and administrative areas of the business of recycling, reports that six collection centers will be installed. One will be in the South, in Florianopolis (SC); and three in Southeast - in Presidente Prudente, Vale do Paraíba and in São Paulo; and two in the Northeast - in Salvador (Bahia) and Recife (PE). Each unit will have capacity to produce 700 tons/month. In total,it will employ 60 people.
"The network complements our current purchases and opens opportunity for Novelis has greater proximity to the start of the recycling chain", said the executive. In the supply of the wholesale, the material purchased arrives pressed and palletized, liquid or as scrap of customers. From the network, the material will come with the initial cleaning, pressed and baled. In 2010, Novelis, which belongs to the Indian group Hindalco, recycled the equivalent to 8.5 billion cans (over 110 thousand tons) in Brazil, in a market that had sales of nearly 18 billion. In December, the company announced the closing of its metal foundry in Aratu (BA), failing to produce 60 thousand tons/year.