It makes sense if everything that comes out of a ore-to-aluminum system is very pure whereas the stuff that comes out of a recycler isn’t guaranteed to be as pure. You could probably set up some kind of quality control pipeline to ensure that the recycled stuff you were buying was top purity. But, that would add expense. It’s also an untried way of doing things, whereas the ore-to-aluminum pipeline is probably well known and trusted.
There’s probably a price where it makes sense, either ultra-pure recycled aluminum gets cheap enough that it’s worth switching, or the aluminum that comes from ore is too expensive. But, until then the current system works and nobody wants to potentially be blamed for causing a crash by trying to save some money.
It makes sense if everything that comes out of a ore-to-aluminum system is very pure whereas the stuff that comes out of a recycler isn’t guaranteed to be as pure. You could probably set up some kind of quality control pipeline to ensure that the recycled stuff you were buying was top purity. But, that would add expense. It’s also an untried way of doing things, whereas the ore-to-aluminum pipeline is probably well known and trusted.
There’s probably a price where it makes sense, either ultra-pure recycled aluminum gets cheap enough that it’s worth switching, or the aluminum that comes from ore is too expensive. But, until then the current system works and nobody wants to potentially be blamed for causing a crash by trying to save some money.