The casting and foundry industries are not renowned for their environmental responsibility. If you were to imagine a metal foundry, you might think about large amounts of molten metals, chemicals and wasted materials plaguing the environment.
However, MRT-castings has a long standing history of environmental responsibility, working closely in partnership with our suppliers, customers and employees to minimise the impact that we have on the environment. We are continually improving our facilities to have the least possible impact on the planet, from air filtration systems, recyclable and minimal packaging, and reducing transport costs by keeping most processes in-house. You can read more about our complete environmental responsibility on our page, here.
In order to minimise our environmental impact at MRT, almost all of the material that we use is what’s known as ‘secondary material’. These are materials that have already been used in production and are no longer what the industry labels as a ‘primary’ material. Recycled aluminium, a secondary material, is up to 92% more energy efficient than producing primary materials alone.
Using high quality recycled materials allows any and all left over materials from the manufacturing process to be returned to ‘the melt’ for use again in further castings. We are constantly analysing and checking the melt using our in-house spectrographic analysis tools to ensure that our molten materials are constantly of the highest quality and standard.
There are many sources of wastage, but one of the biggest wastages in casting can be from the leftover metal from the different processes. There’s a large quantity of metal left over from castings due to flash, sprues, runners, and risers (you can read more about those, here). These ‘extras’ are a necessary part of the casting process and are removed and returned to the melt to be used in another casting.
In addition, swarf, the small metal chips created from machining processes, can add up to create a huge level of wastage – particularly on large projects from solid billet material. Our high tech CNC machinery is designed to fully recover any of the removed material. We then return the material chips to our smelting partners, who recycle it back into ingot, ready for the foundry and reuse in future.
Our complete closed-loop recycling system means that the only metal material that leaves our facility is a finished, high quality product made from recycled materials and comes with the added benefit of it, in itself, being 100% recyclable at the end of its use. Our products are delivered in minimal packaging that is recyclable or UK customers can return it to our facility for future re-use.
