Food Packaging

Silver Is the New Green:
Cans Lead the Way in Environmental Packaging

By: Michael Dunleavy, Vice President of Corporate Affairs & Public Relations, Crown Holdings, Inc.

Consumer perception of the metal can is highly positive. Canned food and beverages are seen as a time-tested and highly dependable method of safely and efficiently packaging the products consumed on a daily basis. Cans stack easily on store shelves, fit neatly into refrigeration units, are easy to store and, for the beverage market, chill quickly and stay cold longer. But the can also possesses some unique environmental advantages that many consumers are less aware of.

Metal packaging doesn't just hold its own against other forms of packaging in terms of recycleability - it excels. Furthermore, food and beverage brand managers can take advantage of many brand-building technologies in metal packaging while leveraging the can's inherently environmentally friendly properties.

More material can be efficiently and profitably recycled from a single metal can than any other form of packaging widely available today. For food and beverage suppliers, this is an important point to leverage with consumers. The can is a valuable icon communicating value, product quality and stability. It can also help brands bridge the gap between stoic icon and progressive change.

So how is the can the ultimate in environmental packaging? Let's start with the material itself. The metal used in cans (either aluminum or steel) is a renewable material and can therefore be recycled infinitely with no degradation in quality. While other materials promote recycling, there is a limit to the number of times such recycled materials can be transformed into a new package that is suitable for use with food or beverage products. In fact, the use of many recycled packaging materials, including plastics and paper, is restricted due to degradation and must instead find homes in less demanding and less valuable industrial applications. However, metals used in cans are recycled again and again and are utilized to create new, high integrity packaging.

Metal cans also enjoy material and design simplicity, making them more efficient in their initial construction and through their recycling life. In most can production facilitates, cans begin as flat pieces of metal. Depending on production processes, that flat piece of metal is transformed through mechanical manipulation into a can.

With the exception of some coatings and decoration, cans are constructed from one, consistent material (coatings burn away quickly in the metal recycling process and contribute to energy savings). This material simplicity makes the recycling process less complicated, more efficient, and lessens the overall environmental impact of not just the can itself, but the energy it takes to recycle the can. For example, producing recycled aluminium takes only 5% of the energy required to produce virgin material. In other words, it is actually less expensive and takes less energy to produce a recycled can than it does to produce a can from new material.

The production simplicity and high value retention post-recycling has made the recycling of cans a more environmentally friendly – and a very profitable – endeavour. In fact, most recycling centers actually fund their costly paper and plastic recycling with proceeds from recycling metal packaging.

The process of can recycling is not only simpler but it yields a higher value product. Finances ultimately decide altruism and the perception of cans as an environmentally friendly package will be driven by it also being bottom line friendly.

Of course, these facts are ultimately proven in results. The can's reputation as an environmentally friendly package is built by both the food and beverage industry and the consumers that they serve. The good news is that recycling is on the rise for cans all over the world.

For example, in the US, the world's largest beverage can market, the recycle rate for aluminum cans is over 51%. By contrast, PET has a recycle rate of only 20%. Around the world, recycle rates are even higher depending on regional factors. In Brazil the rate is over 80%. In Europe, cans have established an excellent recycling record, averaging over 60%. Rates in Germany and the Netherlands are over 80%, and in Scandinavia and Belgium, the figure jumps to over 90%. All of these figures are slated to increase as momentum for can recycling grows and the economic realities of can recycling scale up.

Efficiency, profitability, and sustainability are often cited as hallmarks of environmental policies and practices. Governments, private institutions and consumers around the world are increasingly demanding packaging which is environmentally friendly. The can presents a unique opportunity for food and beverage suppliers to give consumers a familiar and even iconic form of packaging that is also the clear environmental packaging material of choice.

Can technology has also advanced significantly and, today, more innovative technologies are available to food and beverage suppliers that offer more eye-catching shelf appeal, greater convenience and more innovation. For instance, Crown s shaping technology has been used by brands such as Heineken and Crosse & Blackwell, one of Premier Foods leading canned food brands.

Advancements in easy-open technology are continuing to be enhanced, offering consumers great convenience and taking the can out of the kitchen cupboard and into the busy on-the-go lives that most of us live today.

For the food and beverage industry, these new technologies combined with an excellent environmental profile mean that the can offers the best of both worlds: an efficient, appealing and trusted package with a number of very advantageous environmental traits. Communicating this to end consumers can only benefit the entire industry. Food and beverage suppliers can work with suppliers to communicate the value of the can as a compatible to environmental 'best practices'.

As trends in recycling grow, the can also represents a sustainable component that can be supported by the entire supply chain. This is important because, while consumers demand environmentally sound packaging, they also demand value. The can is an effective means of delivering both.