In 2007, over 100 Billion U.S. Beverage cans were shipped. 53.8% of these were collected for recycling.1

Recycling is a good idea, but is it the best idea? The average employee consumes 2.5 cans of soda each day at work; but while “recycling aluminum cans saves 95 percent of the energAluminum Cany used to make aluminum cans from virgin ore,”2, it still takes a lot of energy to make a can. More energy would be saved if a new can wasn’t needed every time you had a soda or beer.

How much energy does it take to make a beverage can?  I contacted The Aluminum Association3and one of their sustainability experts was kind enough to get back to me.  He had this to say:

Based on the current production and recycling profile, the Primary Energy Demand (this includes all direct and indirect energy demand of the entire manufacturing process, from raw material extraction to metal/secondary metal production to can making and transportation) for 1000 cans (mixed in size but the majority are 12 oz cans) is approximately 2000 MJ [Megajoules].

Making one can requires 2 Megajoules of energy.  One Megajoule equals approximately 0.278 kilowatt hours of electricity.  To put that in perspective, using a 60 watt light bulb for one hour consumes 0.06 kilowatt hours of electricity.4  Which means you could have a 60 watt light on for over nine hours and use the same amount of energy as it takes to make one aluminum can.

People have to have their soda fix, so what is an alternative?

One thing that is nice about fountain drinks are that you can bring your own container (although you’re probably not supposed to). At convenience stores you generally buy a cup, larger cups costing more, and you are only supposed to fill up a cup you buy at the convenience store–because practically speaking the store sells the cup, not the soda. However, what if fountain drinks and reusable containers replaced vending machines? Instead of buying a can of soda, when you pay for a soda, the fountain machine is set to disburse x volume of drink, so when you pay, the machine is set to distribute 12 oz (355 ml) of your favorite beverage. Then, you bring your own reusable container. This way, we would not be left with billions of aluminum cans or plastic bottles that need to be recycled. These same kiosks could sell reusable, but still highly recyclable, containers, in case people don’t have one. However, these would be of high quality so that people are incentivized to reuse it and not have to pay for a new one.

One issue would be water consumption, reusable containers would need to be washed before being reused (in some instances). However, putting one extra container in the dishwasher would likely have less impact than the energy needed to recycle cans. Plus, one still needs to rinse out a can before it’s put in the recycling bin.  Furthermore, for some people, who might have 2-3 cans or bottles of cola a day, they would not need to wash their container 2-3 times a day, maybe only one, at the end of the day.  Even with recycling, 5% of the energy that went into the can is lost, and you save 100% of the energy you don’t use.  This idea is simliar to bringing a mug to a coffee shop.

What would be the return?

Of the 100 billion cans shipped in the U.S., 46.2% were not recycled, meaning the equivalent of over 24 billion killowatt hours of electricity was lost.5  To illustrate this point, consider that the Mohave Coal-fired Power Station, when in operation, had a maximum capacity of 1.58 million kilowatts (1,580 MW).6  So 15,000 similar-sized coal powered plants would need to be built in order to produce an equivalent amount of electricity to the amount of energy lost due to failure to recycle aluminum cans.

  1. http://www.aluminum.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NewsStatistics/StatisticsReports/CanReclamation/UBC_Recycling_Rate_2007.pdf [↩]
  2. http://www.alcoa.com/alcoa_recycling/en/fun_facts.asp [↩]
  3. http://www.aluminum.org/ [↩]
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilowatt_hour [↩]
  5. 100 billion x .462 (the number of cans not recycled) = 46.2 billion x 2 MG (energy required to make 1 can) = 92.4 billion MG x .95 (amount of energy saved through recycling) = 87.78 MG (energy lost due to not recycling) converted to kilowatt hours = 24.383 kWh [↩]
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohave_Power_Station [↩]