Spectro Alloys and The Opus Group broke ground on a $71 million expansion to add new aluminum recycling capabilities to Spectro’s Rosemount campus. Spectro Alloys, the leading Midwest-based aluminum recycler, plans to recycle more end-of-life scrap aluminum to improve recycling rates in Minnesota and meet a growing demand for recycled aluminum sheet ingot and extrusion billet.
Spectro Alloys will produce recycled billet and sheet ingot in a new 90,000 square foot building along Highway 55. The first phase of the project will result in nearly 120 million pounds per year of additional recycling capacity and create up to 50 new full-time jobs. The facility will include state-of-the-art equipment for sorting, melting, casting, sawing, homogenizing and packaging with industry-leading automation and the best available pollution control technology. Spectro’s plant will also provide energy use and carbon emission reductions of 95% when compared to new aluminum production.
Aluminum billet is used as raw material for the extrusion process, and is turned into products like railings, window and door trim, and structural components for cars, boats, airplanes, trailers, docks and more. Spectro will also have the ability to recycle used beverage containers into sheet ingot – slabs of aluminum weighing up to 60,000 pounds each – a feedstock for rolling mills. In Minnesota, only 45 percent of aluminum beverage containers are currently being recycled, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
Construction will continue through 2024, and the facility is expected to begin production in mid-2025.