Hydro seeking recycling options for Kurri Kurri smelter spent pot-liner

Hydro’s elaborate remediation plan for its Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter drew applause from Australia’s new federal Labor member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson, reported industry sources. Terming the proposed initiative as possibly ‘the world’s best practice’, Swanson said on Friday last week that she was seeking briefings from the aluminium giant and from other industry experts about what was being planned for the former smelter site, where the main cause of concern was the spent pot-liner.

According to sources close to Hydro, the aluminium producer has two lots of spent pot-liner to deal with presently. Spent pot-liners are toxic, corrosive and environmentally hazardous. From 1969 till 1993, the spent pot-liner was stockpiled near “Mount Alcan”; 1993 onward a part of it is being stored in sheds. Hydro needs to dig up the material near Mount Alcan and move by truck to a new purposed site about one kilometre away from the smelter buildings where a cell is to be made soon. It had initially planned to put this material in the containment cell but now wants to have it treated off-site.

Richard Brown, Hydro’s Managing Director said on Friday, “We are committed to find re-use or recycling options for his material and will have a better understanding of the options later in the year.”

“Based on our market investigations for recycling spent pot lining stored in the sheds, we firmly believe there are no recycling options available for the pot-liner in the ground due to cross-contamination and health and safety risks.”

According to Hydro’s environmental statement, the new off-site cell is expected to contain almost 480,000 tonnes of spent pot-liner material, including 320,000 tonnes from the existing stockpile.

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