Tracking the Fate of Aluminium in the EU Using the MaTrace Model

Gabriela Jarrín Jácome, María Fernanda Godoy León, Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga and Jo Dewulf
Additional contact information
Gabriela Jarrín Jácome: Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
María Fernanda Godoy León: Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Rodrigo A. F. Alvarenga: Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Jo Dewulf: Research Group Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN), Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

Resources, 2021, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: Aluminium is a metal of high economic importance for the European Union (EU), presenting unique properties (e.g., light weight and high corrosion resistance) and with applications in important sectors (e.g., transportation, construction and packaging). It is also known for its high recyclability potential, but relevant losses occur in its life cycle, compromising the amount of aluminium available for secondary production. A novel methodology that allows the identification of these losses and their impact on the aluminium flows in society is the MaTrace model. The objective of this article is to perform a dMFA of the secondary production of aluminium in the EU technosphere using the modified version of MaTrace, in order to estimate flows of the metal embedded in 12 product categories. Twelve scenarios were built in order to assess the impact of changes in policies, demand and technology. The flows were forecasted for a period of 25 years, starting in 2018. The results of the baseline scenario show that after 25 years, 24% of the initial material remains in use, 4% is hoarded by users, 10% has been exported and 61% has been physically lost. The main contributor to the losses is the non-selective collection of end-of-life products. The results of the different scenarios show that by increasing the collection-to-recycling rates of the 12 product categories, the aluminium that stays in use increase up to 32.8%, reaffirming that one way to keep the material in use is to improve the collection-to-recycling schemes in the EU.

Keywords: aluminium; MaTrace; dynamic material flow analysis; secondary production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/7/72/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/10/7/72/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jresou:v:10:y:2021:i:7:p:72-:d:592926

Access Statistics for this article

Resources is currently edited by Ms. Donchian Ma

More articles in Resources from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().