http://www.care2.com/greenliving/connect-the-dots-aluminum-cans.html
Connect the Dots: Aluminum Cans
I don’t know about you but the single most effective way I have found to change people’s habits is to educate them as to what they are causing when they do something. I’ve found this to be the case with myself over and over as well, as I connect the dots and recognize what consequences my habits have. So today I am going to blatantly steal from another source (giving full credit where credit is due) and share with you something that has had a profound effect on me. Since it’s all in the name of education, I’m hoping that no one takes offense.
The excerpt below first came to my attention in a class I took about three years back. Since I first read it, I’d say that I’ve drunk from approximately four aluminum cans. Why? Because every time I look at one, I see all of the energy density that resides there. It’s a real shocker and I’ll be interested to see if anyone else has the kind of visceral response I had.
So there you have it. I’d say enjoy, but that doesn’t really seem right, so let’s just say I hope it resonates and has an impact.
Dave
A striking case study of the complexity of industrial metabolism is provided by James Womack and Daniel Jones in their book Lean Thinking, where they trace the origins and pathways of a can of English cola. The can itself is more costly and complicated to manufacture than the beverage. Bauxite is mined in Australia and trucked to a chemical reduction mill where a half-hour process purifies each ton of bauxite into a half ton of aluminum oxide. When enough of that is stockpiled, it is loaded on a giant ore carrier and sent to Sweden or Norway, where hydroelectric dams provide cheap electricity. After a month-long journey across two oceans, it usually sits at the smelter for as long as two months.
The smelter takes two hours to turn each half ton of aluminum oxide into a quarter ton of aluminum metal, in ingots ten meters long. These are cured for two weeks before being shipped to roller mills in Sweden or Germany. There each ingot is heated to nearly nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit and rolled down to a thickness of an eighth of an inch. The resulting sheets are wrapped in ten-ton coils and transported to a warehouse, and then to a cold rolling mill in the same or another country, where they are rolled tenfold thinner, ready for fabrication. The aluminum is then sent to England, where sheets are punched and formed into cans, which are then washed, dried, painted with a base coat, and then painted again with specific product information. The cans are next lacquered, flanged (they are still topless), sprayed inside with a protective coating to prevent the cola from corroding the can, and inspected.
The cans are palletized, forklifted, and warehoused until needed. They are then shipped to the bottler, where they are washed and cleaned once more, then filled with water mixed with flavored syrup, phosphorus, caffeine, and carbon dioxide gas. The sugar is harvested from beet fields in France and undergoes trucking, milling, refining, and shipping. The phosphorus comes from Idaho, where it is excavated from deep open-pit mines�a process that also unearths cadmium and radioactive thorium. Round-the-clock, the mining company uses the same amount of electricity as a city of 100,000 people in order to reduce the phosphate to food-grade quality. The caffeine is shipped from a chemical manufacturer to the syrup manufacturer in England.
The filled cans are sealed with an aluminum “pop-top” lid at the rate of fifteen hundred cans per minute, then inserted into cardboard cartons printed with matching color and promotional schemes. The cartons are made of forest pulp that may have originated anywhere from Sweden or Siberia to the old-growth, virgin forests of British Columbia that are the home of grizzly, wolverines, otters, and eagles. Palletized again, the cans are shipped to a regional distribution warehouse, and shortly thereafter to a supermarket where a typical can is purchased within three days. The consumer buys twelve ounces of the phosphate-tinged, caffeine-impregnated, caramel-flavored sugar water. Drinking the cola takes a few minutes; throwing the can away takes a second. In England, consumers discard 84 percent of all cans, which means that the overall rate of aluminum waste, after counting production losses, is 88 percent. The United States still gets three-fifths of its aluminum from virgin ore, at twenty times the energy intensity of recycled aluminum, and throws away enough aluminum to replace its entire commercial aircraft fleet every three months.
Dave Chameides is a filmmaker and environmental educator. His website and newsletter are designed to inspire thought and dialog on environmental solutions and revolve around the idea that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something. “Give people the facts, and they’ll do the right thing.”
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26 comments
add your comment »I don't mind who reads this but not everyone might know sometimes but if you have sensitive interiors, it is very likely that the contents of most fizzy drinks will make it worse. In my case the below itching was the affliction of the devil and after many years I eventually got the correct anasethetic ointment which helps immensely.
So basically, it is not just the tins that are bad for us but as said by others, 'Jewels' etc, the contents are just as bad in many ways.
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I gave up soda drinking because of the chemicals they put in them (mostly corn syrup and aspartine) but am glad now that I did so for the other reasons. Soda is not good for you period. If people want to keep killing themselves by drinking soday no one can stop them but I thank the writer for the spirit in which they wrote the article. They were just trying to spread awareness but it is amazing to see the defensive reactions. I am sensitive to wheat gluten and yeast but I love bread. The substitutes suck. It has taken me years to stop eating bread anyway. It has been devastating to my health yet I would still do it. It is a discipline (or entitlement) thing to me and something our world is in true lack of now. I have come out the other side now and am so proud of myself. I wish the feeling I have now on to others. The old saying about "your body is a temple" right on!
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To Tony:
YES.
As always, great article Dave. I rarely drink soda, maybe one root beer in the past two years, but my husband drinks it a little more. After I show him this article, he won't want to drink it anymore.
Now I'm going to research the processes of other commonly used products to see how I can further reduce my impact on our planet.
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Tony,
I'm a little confused by your comment. Do you mean to say that since anything you do will have an impact, you don't feel the need to try and limit that impact if you can? That doesn't make much sense to me. And while my point wasn't necessarily that you shouldn't drink soda, would that have been so horrible if it was? We may need to rethink what is "important" as times move forward and my guess is that soda won't be high on that list. Interested in your thoughts.
Dave
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Since I recycle, I do plan on drinking my Diet Pepsi. You don't have to give up Pepsi, just recycle your cans. :-)
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And the point of all that is. . . .? You mean for me not to drink soda? Swear off using all aluminum products forever? Feel guilty every time I pop open a pepsi? The hard fact is that as long as I'm drawing breath, I'll have an impact on my surroundings. That's just the way it is.
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Genivieve, we do have littering laws, complete with fines up to $500. Enforcement is difficult, and there are people with no respect for the environment who just don't care. As Deborah noted, the deposit in Michigan is 10 cents per container. The proceeds from the same amount of cans/bottles in New York would be half as much with the 5 cent deposit in place. I still feel that the condemnation of aluminum cans is misplaced. Cans are easier to save, and they don't shatter when thrown from a moving vehicle. They are melted down at around 1300 degrees Fahrenheit. That will kill almost all bacteria. If they are recycled, there is a significant energy savings. To summarize, aluminum cans are more recyclable, safer, and easier to store. You won't see many cans on our roadsides; there are plenty of people who collect cans for the money. Even at 5 cents per can/bottle. I would have thought that cans would be the preference of environmentalist also.
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This is just another example of how our ways to keep our consumer society going are just stupid and senseless .
Since most industrialized food products , including beverages are unhealthy in one way or another, I think the best thing to do for ourselves and the environment is to avoid them altogether .
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Point is: don't buy soft drinks and alcohol whether packaged in aluminum cans or plastic bottles. Don't buy beer packaged in aluminum cans either. I am amazed to read how much some people make in 2 or 3 hours picking up cans along the road in Michigan. It points to an amazing amount of cans being thrown out of people's cars on a regular basis. Don't you have fines in America for people who trash public roads and land ?
Here in Japan we have the choice. We can buy beer in glass bottles which have a deposit on and are used again after cleaning and disinfecting. But I make my own beer and I bottle it myself. Also, if you're really desperate for Coca Cola, they still sell it in bottles too in Japan. Don't they sell it like that anymore in America ?
Also the rate for recycling is probably higher in Japan where each town has a special day for collecting cans and PET bottles. For glass, it's another day. For paper, yet another day. For milk cartons and Styrofoam trays, we take them to a special box outside supermarkets.
But the point is, try to avoid buying those unnecessary things. Not only they're bad for your health, but as you can see, incredibly bad for the environment too.
Anyway, thank you so much for posting this article. I truly hope it will open some people's eyes as to what they're responsible for when they behave like mindless consumers.
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I'm surprised that aluminum recycling is not done on a high scale in the US. Here in Belgium, we recycle the aluminum cans since more that 15 years. We have special waste bags for plastic and alluminum and metal, and the paper waste is also recycled.
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