GeT Metal Group (Pty) Ltd and its subsidiary GeT Alloys (Pty) Ltd have successfully eliminated virgin fossil fuels from their aluminium melting operations by launching a pioneering waste-to-energy initiative. The project transforms approximately 150,000 end-of-life tyres every year into 1.44 million litres of high-quality industrial fuel, directly tackling South Africa’s severe waste tyre burden while decarbonising heavy industry.
GeT Alloys is a prominent South African aluminium recycler, processing roughly 350 million used beverage cans, packaging items and post-consumer scraps annually into premium aluminium ingots. Following the full implementation of this circular economy model, the facility has completely replaced its monthly consumption of 120,000 litres of conventional heavy fuel oil with tyre-derived fuel oil. The fuel is recovered through a controlled, oxygen-free thermal conversion process that alters the chemical structure of the waste tyres. To further close the loop, carbon black, a secondary product of this waste-to-energy process, is captured and used within GeT Alloys’ own aluminium dross recovery operations. Further strengthening this multi-stream circular model, the steel wire recovered during the tyre conversion process is also retained and utilised within the GeT Metal Group. This material is supplied as feedstock to GeT Steel, the Group’s steel foundry in Atlantis Industrial, where it is incorporated into the production of steel billets for both the South African and export markets, ensuring that multiple material streams from end-of-life tyres are returned to productive industrial use. Andrew Bishop, Director at GeT Metal Group, explains the strategic importance of the transition:“Before launching this initiative, our facility required massive volumes of conventional furnace oil to sustain our melting operations. By engineering a solution that transforms a problematic waste stream into a valuable manufacturing input, we have eliminated the use of virgin fossil fuels in our primary furnaces. This shows that heavy industry can successfully decouple production from fossil fuels through smart engineering.”By displacing 1.44 million litres of conventional heavy fuel oil annually, the initiative delivers an estimated greenhouse gas saving of 720 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Calculated using internationally recognised emission factors consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol methodologies, these savings represent the avoidance of heavy upstream emissions linked to crude oil extraction, refining and fuel transportation.
World-class aluminium ingots manufactured by GeT Alloys from recycled beverage cans and post-consumer scrap.
