It's Always Aluminum

By: Robert Jolic

The Great Change

Aluminum is the most plentiful metal in the world other than iron, we use and see it everyday and everywhere. I bet right now you are probably drinking out of an aluminum can or writing with an aluminum pen. The most amazing thing about aluminum is that it can be recycled repeatedly, not only cans, but aluminum foil, plates and pie moulds, window frames, garden furniture and automotive components are melted down and used to make similar products again. Over time people have found ways to waste less energy in recycling aluminum and creating aluminum products, specifically the can.

The aluminum can has changed greatly over time in design and in the amount of material used in a can. If you ever looked at aluminum cans you can see that it is narrow at the top. Have you ever wondered why? Well it's like that because it saves a huge amount of energy, the original can had a straight top, but because they made the diameter of the top of the can smaller it wasted less aluminum. Another thing is that the thickness of the can has changed in size; the original can was extremely thick and heavy and it wasted a lot of energy, the cans today have been reduced in size by over 50%, almost to the thickness of a piece of paper.

Recycling aluminum is becoming more and more popular and more efficient. Scar aluminum has significant value and commands good market prices. Many companies have started to invest in recycling aluminum not only in self interest but because of what good it does for the world. Recycling it emits only 5% of the worlds green house gases, compared to other green house emissions recycling aluminum is very good. (http://www.world-aluminium.org/production/recycling/index.html) Over 70% is the recycling rate in some countries. It is very important to reuse aluminum or any material for that matter.

Less is More

Scientists are still working on the design of the can. They are still trying to find ways of reducing the amount of aluminum put into the can. Why though….why would they still be working on the design of the can? Well even though the amazing numbers show how much energy we save by recycling, reusing, and reducing aluminum we can still save more.

It is just amazing on how a big role it plays in our life and how much we save just by doing one little thing, recycling. Do we know how the can of the future will look? No, but do we know if it will save even more energy then it already is? Yes, of course!

The message to people is to recycle, not only aluminum but everything that can be recycled. It is very important and it can do a lot for us in the long run. Recycling can reduce green house emissions then actually creating the item from the beginning.