A leading aluminium and renewable energy company is investing more than £13 million in a state-of-the-art scrap sorting facility in Wrexham, creating 16 jobs.

Hydro has decided to invest 180 million Norwegian Krone – just over £13 million – in the facility at its North Wales recycling plant. It will have the capacity to source and sort more than 30,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap annually, enough aluminium for more than 100,000 electric vehicles.

The sorting facility will be located next to the company’s extrusion ingot recycling plant and will provide 16 new jobs. By introducing Hydro’s state-of-the-art HySort technology, Hydro Wrexham will be able to increase sorting accuracy and capacity, as well as increasing the ability to recycle post-consumer aluminium scrap.

Barry Salisbury, Hydro’s plant manager in Wrexham, said:

“This new facility enables us to optimally sort a large variety of post-consumer scrap grades that are mainly exported out of the UK today, before continuing to the next step of the recycling process. This is an essential improvement in material flow that allows us to meet the increasing demand for low-carbon aluminium that we see particularly within the automotive, transport, and building and construction segments.”

The use of post-consumer aluminium scrap significantly reduces the CO2 footprint compared to so-called pre-consumer, or process scrap, and primary aluminium. The investment in the sorting facility at Wrexham is one of several investments to reach Hydro's overall ambition to step up growth investments in recycling towards 2030. The scrap will be sourced from local scrap suppliers in the region.

Norway-based Hydro has 33,000 employees in more than 140 locations and 40 countries.

Ingrid Guddal, Head of Recycling in Hydro Aluminium Metal, said:

“In Hydro we are always looking for opportunities to reach our recycling ambitions. Our recycling plant in Wrexham is already an essential producer of high-quality aluminium in the UK market. With the increasing interest from European customers to buy low-carbon aluminium, this sorting facility is a logical next step in optimizing our recycling processes by using a wider range of post-consumer aluminium scrap.”

Construction of the sorting facility will start in the autumn, and the plant is expected to be operational by January 2026.