Have you ever recycled aluminium cans? Take the United States as an example, an American on average consumes one aluminium can per day, but only 65% of used aluminium cans returns to the recycling system and more than 3.3 billion aluminium cans end up discarded in 2011. With their recycling value, aluminium cans play a part in environmental protection. The energy saved by recycling an aluminium can is equivalent to supplying electricity to a television for 3 hours or a 100-watt bulb for 4 hours.
Scrape aluminium cans are crushed into smaller sizes in recycling sites and transported to an aluminium smelting plant to turn back to aluminium ingots. From there a new life cycle of aluminium cans starts. An important feature of aluminium cans is they can be 100 percent recycled endlessly. Recycling aluminum consumes 95 percent less energy than producing aluminum from bauxite, and the metal properties of the two remain the same. Many developed countries put great emphasis on recycling scrap aluminium cans. For instance, in 2011, the aluminium cans’ recycling rates in Japan and Brazil were up to 90% while that in the United States was only 65%. The U.S. aluminium industry expects that aluminium recycling rate will be increased to 75% by 2015.
In recent years, behind the rise of global environmental protection awareness and the trend of energy saving and carbon reduction are the idea of "carbon footprint," which has revolutionized the traditional concept of environmental protection. "Carbon footprint" is defined as the total amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activities, and is used to assess the impact on the environment. A research by the Carbon Trust, UK indicates that for a 300ml beverage container, the carbon footprint of a glass bottle is 350 grams, while that of an aluminium can is only 170 grams. The main reason is glass bottles are bulkier, and its transportation increases fuel consumption, thus generating more carbon emissions. In addition, the aluminium is the most environmental friendly package material in the sense that they can be re-packaged within 60 days after recycling and back on store shelves.
Out of environmental protection concerns, many countries have begun to promote aluminium cans a a prepared packaging recently. Aluminium cans are also increasingly lightweight. An aluminium can weighed about 16.2 grams in 1992 now weighs only 13.9 grams. Today’s cans are thinner and thus are more convenient to carry around than 20 years ago. What’s more, they are sturdy. Compared with glass bottles and plastic bottles, aluminium cans can reduce 40% and 30% of space used during the transportation respectively.
Once refrigerated, the beverages stored in aluminium cans will stay icy cold, an added benefit to beer and soft drinks lovers.
Nothing is as simple as it may seem. The manufacturing process of aluminium cans combines the advanced technology of metallurgy, chemical, mechanical, electronics and food industries amid others and so the entry barriers are high. According to the Boston Consulting Group’s report, the current annual average consumption of aluminium cans per capita in Mainland China is about 13, less than half of the global aluminium can consumption, and far behind the level of 340 cans per capita in the United States. From now on until 2015, it is expected that the beverage can market in Mainland China has the potential to increase by 25% annually. Since 2011,
China Zhongwang has been advancing its aluminium flat rolled project in full gear. Of the products in the project, the aluminium sheets and rolls are used to manufacture aluminium cans. With the rapid growth of China’s economy and the increase in average income, the potential of aluminium flat rolled market driven by 1.3 billion of population can never be underestimated.
