Is this Sustainable Packaging – or Greenwash in Disguise?

Posted on 29 Jul 2024

Sustainability must be the most over used word in the Packaging Lexicon, with aluminium claimed to be the most sustainable material. However, aluminium cans are also the most environmentally polluting packaging material for the following reasons.

Aluminium Can Recycling

Worldwide, we use some 180 billion aluminium cans per year, that’s 167,000 every second! Every can, (as shown on the video) has a plastic lining. This is to prevent the cans liquid contents being contaminated by the aluminium casings. In effect, aluminium cans are a ‘single use’ plastic bottle in disguise!

It is claimed that 70% of all aluminium cans produced are recycled, that’s circa 126 billion cans. Presumably, the remaining 54 billion are sent to landfill or ‘lost’. The plastic content of all these aluminium cans, including the lining and plastic widgets used, is estimated to be the equivalent of 12% of the plastic used in a plastic bottle. Thus, recycling 126 billion aluminium cans is the equivalent of incinerating 15 billion plastic bottles, with the loss of all the plastic and the resulting GHG emissions entering the atmosphere. It is also apparent that some 54 billion cans are not recycled, then that is the equivalent of a further 6.5 billion plastic bottles being buried in landfill.

Thus, the environmental cost of using 180 billion aluminium cans is equal to the incineration and landfill of 25 billion plastic bottles! According to Google, this is equivalent to burning and burying nearly 3 x the number of plastic bottles used in the UK each year (7.7 billion).

We are then told that aluminium can be infinitely recycled, yet the statistics show that some 54 billion cans are not recycled every year and therefore have to be replaced. In addition, according to Google, the use of aluminium cans is growing year by year by 4.5%, (through – 2030). Thus, the GHG emissions from recycling aluminium will continue to grow. whilst it is accepted that the recycling of aluminium significantly reduces the energy required when compared to production of virgin material, this recycling is done at 700°C, therefore the energy used is still nearly twice that needed to produce a virgin plastic bottle at 200-400°C.

Aluminium Manufacture

Producing aluminium from bauxite is one of the most toxic, polluting, energy intensive, manufacturing processes on the planet. The process of mining, crushing, smelting bauxite to form the aluminium ingots from which the sheets are formed is calculated to consume some 3% of the World’s total energy supply. As an example, Australia produces just 1.5 million tonnes of aluminium per year, however this consumes some 15-16% of Australia’s total energy supply (Australia Aluminium Council). Meanwhile, China produces 37 million tonnes of aluminium, mostly using coal for energy. The level of GHG emissions from China’s production is not recorded! But the GHG emissions and environmental pollution created must be horrendous.

Each tonne of aluminium produced generates up to 5 tonnes of untreatable toxic waste (red mud). There are some 4 billion tonnes of this untreatable toxic material stored Worldwide, (mostly in China). It contains arsenic, heavy metals and is extremely alkaline, all these ingredients are hazardous to both humans and animals. This toxic soup is stored in vast lakes which when they dry out form environmental deserts, with a complete absence of flora and fauna, etc.

In 2010 in Hungary, leakage from one of these lakes killed 10 people and seriously injured 120 others. Each year aluminium manufacture adds a further 175 million tonnes to this environmental devastation, hidden by necessity, from the eyes of the World.

Summary

Is sustainability of aluminium so desirable in packaging that it should be considered more important than the devastating effect the use of this material has on our environment?

Producing aluminium is,

1. Highly energy intensive. Only the production of glass bottles generates more greenhouse gas emissions per tonne than aluminium.
2. Even recycling aluminium uses more energy and produces more GHG emissions than producing a virgin plastic bottle.
3. Recycling aluminium results in the equivalent of burning / burying 22 billion plastic bottles.
4. Worldwide, the waste produced in manufacture of aluminium already totals 4 billion tonnes.
5. This waste is untreatable, highly toxic and hazardous to animals, humans and all plant life.
6. Each year we add a further 170 million tonnes of this untreatable toxic mud, mostly stored in remote regions of China.

Remarkably, all these negative environmental aspects of the use of aluminium cans are ignored when promoting packaging material circularity and sustainability. This is probably because the environmental devastation remains unseen in the western world. Meanwhile, demand for aluminium is growing year by year and is projected to increase by almost 40% 2020-2030. Surely it would be more economically viable and environmentally beneficial to simply increase the thickness of the plastic lining to create a plastic bottle and eliminate the aluminium casing. Plastic bottle manufacture creates just 25% of the GHG emissions required to make an aluminium can, without any of the environmental devastation created by aluminium recycling and manufacture?  

As ever, I welcome your thoughts on any of the issues raised and would welcome you joining me on LinkedIn for more regular updates.

Barry Twigg | LinkedIn

#DontHatePlastic