EGA's new aluminium recycling plant signals UAE’s shift towards a circular economy and greener industry

Emirates Global Aluminium has recently opened what’s now the biggest aluminium recycling plant in the United Arab Emirates, located at Al Taweelah. It’s a clear move that underscores the country’s push towards a lower-carbon industrial sector and a more circular approach to materials use. Interestingly enough, this project also boosts EGA’s position in a sector where recycled aluminium is becoming pretty important , especially in terms of helping industries decarbonise.

The new facility is set up to process about 185,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap each year , both post-consumer and some selected pre-consumer waste. It then turns this scrap into low-carbon billets and T-bars which are marketed under EGA’s RevivAL brand. Keeping more scrap within the UAE means less need to export used metal for processing elsewhere, and as a result, EGA now becomes the country’s biggest consumer of aluminium scrap.

When the plant was officially inaugurated, a bunch of senior UAE officials and EGA executives were present. Among them were Dr Amna bint Abdullah Al Dahak, the Minister of Climate Change and Environment, and Dr Shaikha Salem Al Dhaheri, Secretary General of the Environment Agency , Abu Dhabi. The company mentioned that the plant lines up well with the country’s industrial policies and the broader aim to boost local manufacturing through cleaner production methods.

Dr Al Dahak pointed out that aluminium recycling is a core part of the UAE’s Circular Economy Policy. She also highlighted that recycled aluminium uses up to 95% less energy than producing primary aluminium from raw ore, which is a pretty significant savings that cuts emissions and improves overall resource efficiency. That’s a really important point for the industry’s climate story, especially in places like the UAE, where industrial growth and decarbonisation are now seen as two sides of the same coin.

According to EGA, building the plant involved over four million work hours , and remarkably, not a single lost-time injury. That record is a point of pride and a way for the company to emphasise their safety and engineering standards. The construction used more than 26,300 cubic metres of concrete and over 4,600 tonnes of structural steel, showing the scale of the investment in Al Taweelah.

Production kicked off back in February, but there was a bit of delay in commissioning after the attack on Khalifa Economic Zone Abu Dhabi in March. Operations picked back up in April, and the recycling process was restarted early in May. EGA expects the plant to reach full capacity within about six months , though that depends a lot on how much scrap they can get, since recycling plants really do rely on consistent feedstock. The real challenge will be how quickly the UAE can capture and process its own scrap; that’s what will determine how fast they can scale up.

But for EGA, this isn’t just a domestic project. The CEO, Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, said it’s part of the company’s broader role in supporting the UAE’s “Make it in the Emirates” initiative and the Operation 300bn strategy, both of which are about growing local industrial capabilities. It also fits neatly within EGA’s shift from mainly supplying primary aluminium to becoming more of a recycler and supplier of greener, lower-carbon metals.

In fact, they already market solar-powered primary aluminium under the CelestiAL-R brand and nuclear-powered aluminium as MinimAL-R. Adding recycled aluminium to their portfolio means giving customers more options to reduce their carbon footprints , especially those in construction, transportation, and packaging, where there’s mounting pressure to report emissions honestly.

EGA’s ambitions go far beyond just the UAE. The company says that, including plans to acquire an 80% stake in Italy’s Eco Green, they’ll have a recycling capacity exceeding 400,000 tonnes a year across the UAE, Europe, and the US. Plus, there’s another 200,000 tonnes in development. Recent moves in Germany and the US point to a clear strategy: they’re building an international secondary aluminium footprint, not just adding recycling as a side business.

In Germany, EGA Leichtmetall is expanding with a second recycling plant near Hannover, scheduled to open in 2028. In the US, EGA Spectro Alloys in Minnesota finished a 65,000-tonne expansion this year, and they are working on another project to add 35,000 tonnes of annual capacity by 2027. These developments, along with the Al Taweelah project, showcase a strategic move: blending the strength of primary aluminium with a growing recycling operation to meet customer demand for greener materials.

Over recent years, the UAE has really made circular economy policies a visible part of its industrial story, and aluminium is a perfect fit for that push. It’s highly recyclable, keeps its value after use, and can be re-entered into manufacturing multiple times. EGA claims that almost 75% of all aluminium ever produced is still in use , which really highlights how durable aluminium is and why recycling plays such an important role in keeping it circulating.

For the UAE, this new plant is also a statement about the country’s industrial maturity. It’s no longer just about scaling raw material production; now, they’re moving deeper into the full value chain , recovering, refining, and remaking materials locally. In a region where climate action, industrial growth, and economic diversification increasingly overlap, that’s quite a significant step forward.