Ford F-150 plants recycle enough aluminum for 30,000 trucks a month

With the aluminum-bodied F-150 full-size pickup truck, Ford took a material previous used only in low-volume sports cars and luxury sedans and applied it to the best-selling vehicle in the U.S.

That requires a lot of aluminum.

It also gave Ford a further opportunity to lower the F-150's overall carbon footprint by using recycled material.

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Ford says it recycles 20 million pounds of aluminum each month, using a "closed-loop" system that takes scrap material right from the floor of its Dearborn Stamping Plant in Michigan.

An F-150 SuperCrew cab and bed fitted with the hood, tailgate, and doors weighs 656 pounds, meaning Ford recycles enough aluminum for just over 30,000 trucks each month.

The SuperCrew has a crew-cab configuration with four full-size doors, making it the largest cab available.

Ford notes that 30 to 40 percent of the metal in a typical aluminum coil is turned into scrap during the stamping process that produces body panels.

This scrap material is sent back to suppliers in the same trucks that delivered the original coils and, eventually, comes back to the Dearborn Stamping Plant.

The plant supplies F-150 assembly lines in both Dearborn and Kansas City.

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