Alumination - why?

The aluminum can is cool. It’s light and durable and it brings you your favorite icy-cold beverages.

We think this is really cool: there is no limit to the number of times an aluminum can can be recycled. [1] And recycling cans is so much better than making new ones. [2]

Here’s the process of making a new can:

1. Mine deposits of bauxite ore
2. Refine it into alumina, one of the base ingredients for aluminum metal
3. Combine alumina and electricity with a molten electrolyte called cryolite
4. Pass direct current electricity from a consumable carbon anode into the cryolite to split the aluminum oxide into molten aluminum metal and carbon dioxide
5. Collect molten aluminum from the bottom of the cell and cast into ingots (transportable units of metal - ie. gold bars)
6. Melt ingots into sheets and make cans

Recycling a can involves this

1. Collect used cans
2. Shred and clean them
3. Melt them into ingots
4. Melt ingots into sheets and make cans

Recycling an aluminum can uses 95% less energy than it does to produce a new one. And it generates 95% less greenhouse gas emissions, too. [3]

People pay for scrap aluminum, so that shows that it’s valuable. They wouldn’t pay if they couldn’t turn around and make money.

So considering all of that, it’s a shame and an utter waste when aluminum cans go in the trash to be buried literally forever in landfills.

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