Speira has announced the inauguration of its new recycling furnace for beverage cans at the Rheinwerk. The ‘buzzer’ marking the official launch of the plant was pressed by North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister for Economic Affairs, Mona Neubaur, the district administrator of the Rhein-Kreis Neuss, Katharina Reinhold, and the Mayor of Neuss, Reiner Breuer, together with the Speira team. Red Bull was also in attendance: the company uses cans made from Speira’s recycled aluminium for its energy drinks and provided a spectacular highlight at the opening ceremony with a BMX show.

The new facilities mark another milestone in the transformation of the Rheinwerk: Speira has invested around €40 million in the new furnace, which has an annual capacity of around 60,000 tonnes, in the optimisation of the third of four casting lines for recycled alloys, and in the additional storage space for 6,500 tonnes of can scrap, which has been created in the 300-metre-long halls of the former aluminium smelter. This includes spacious facilities for the reception and sampling of incoming scrap. The new furnace is also ‘h2 ready’, meaning it will be ready when the Rheinwerk is one day connected to the hydrogen grid.

“An industry that keeps valuable raw materials in circulation has a competitive advantage: it is not only more sustainable, but also more competitive and more resilient in times of crisis. Speira demonstrates how this can be done: instead of producing new aluminium using large amounts of energy, the company consistently focuses on recycling. Low-CO₂ aluminium from Neuss is already being used today in beverage cans and automotive body components around the world. North Rhine-Westphalia offers the right conditions for circular business models and green technologies to succeed. In this way, we are safeguarding value creation and industrial jobs for the future,” said Mona Neubaur, minister for economic affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“Europe needs more circular economy and fewer raw material losses. With the new facilities, we are creating the conditions to keep significantly more aluminium in the loop and to provide our customers with additional quantities of recycled aluminium. This is good for the competitiveness of European industry and good for the climate,” said Einar Glomnes, CEO of Speira. Recycling aluminium requires around 95% less energy than primary production.

Speira’s recycled aluminium business is growing particularly rapidly in the beverage can sector. “The strong partnership between Speira and Red Bull is based on our shared commitment to sustainable business operations and the circular economy as the foundation for long-term success. We offer our warmest congratulations on the opening of the new recycling furnace and wish Speira every success with this pioneering project for the future of aluminium recycling,” said Alexander Kirchmayr, member of the board and CFO of Red Bull. The rising demand for circular can material is a key driver for the expansion of recycling capacity at the Rheinwerk.

“Ten years ago, together with our team, we set out on a path to systematically reposition the Rheinwerk towards recycling. With the completion of the 40-million-euro investment, we are now reaching a decisive milestone in this transformation and demonstrating how aluminium production and the circular economy can be successfully combined,” commented Boris Kurth, Head of the can business unit at Speira.

The location, which has been shaped by primary aluminium production for decades, is thus taking another major step towards becoming a centre for the circular aluminium economy. The additional capacity will enable Speira to recycle significantly more scrap into high-quality aluminium products, thereby further reducing the use of energy-intensive primary raw materials. Every additional tonne of recycled aluminium not only strengthens the circular economy but also reduces energy consumption and CO₂ emissions throughout the value chain.

District administrator Katharina Reinhold emphasised: “We see the opening of the new recycling furnace as an important signal for our industrial location. The investments and the demand for recycled products demonstrate that the aluminium industry will remain a strong part of our district’s economy in the future. This will secure thousands of industrial jobs in the local aluminium industry in the long term. Furthermore, the investments combine economic efficiency with climate protection, thereby raising the profile of the Rhein-Kreis Neuss as a sustainable business location.”

Mayor Reiner Breuer also noted: “The expansion of the recycling industry is a sustainable investment that further strengthens Neuss as a centre for business and employment and ensures its long-term viability. Secondary aluminium requires significantly less energy and can therefore also contribute to climate protection. I can only congratulate Speira’s management and staff on this decision.”

With the commissioning of the new facilities, the European value chain is gaining additional recycling capacity at a time when demand for low-carbon aluminium is growing significantly. Rheinwerk is playing a key role in this – both now and, increasingly, in the future: here, scrap is collected, analysed, smelted, processed to the same high standard and sent off into a new life cycle. Every expansion of this infrastructure strenghtens Europe’s ability to keep this important light metal in circulation, to make industrial value creation less dependent on raw material imports, and to prevent the loss of aluminium scrap through export to other regions of the world.