Today’s infographic comes from SlyFox Brewing in Pennsylvania. The poster, Respect the Cans, spells out the advantages of cans over bottles.
Click here to see the chart full size.
Today’s infographic comes from SlyFox Brewing in Pennsylvania. The poster, Respect the Cans, spells out the advantages of cans over bottles.
Click here to see the chart full size.
There is so much wrong and so much missing in this infographic I’m surprised you took this seriously. If you’re going to make grand claims about how much more environmentally friendly a product is, you have to do what’s called a Life Cycle Assessment. Cans don’t sprout from trees, they have to be mined, refined, and formed. This all take a lot of chemicals, environmental destruction, and poisons which are having an incredibly negative impact in their regions. The amount of energy needed to mine and refine alumina is incredible. Fun Fact: The worlds largest man-made lake was made to power a dam that over 80% of the power would go to an aluminum company. Ghana displaced over 80,000 people, are still experiencing rolling blackouts, and the now stagnant water has increased disease rates in that country. Oh, and it’s causing earthquakes. Good times! Relevant: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/10/green-craft-beer-dirty-aluminum/
Also, the claim about cans filled with beer being incredibly more green in transport than glass is laughable. The difference in the MPG a truck gets from a load of beer in glass and beer in cans is not as big as many people think.
If there was a close to 100% recycle rate then I’d be all for it, but there isn’t.
Simmer down, John. I know this is a hot button issue for you, your cause célèbre. In fact, Brian Stechschulte actually predicted this would be your reaction. There’s no reason you should have noticed this, but I’ve been posting a new infographic every day this year. But posting them isn’t the same as endorsing them, so saying you’re surprised I took this seriously doesn’t really apply. I’m not curating them or only posting ones that are perfect. I’m just sharing them because I like the form of the infographic.
That being said, when you first posted your thoughts on this, I also weighed in then with my own in Rethinking the Can. I wasn’t entirely convinced of your arguments then, and if you look through the comments, I wasn’t the only one. It’s a worthy discussion, and I said so then, but I’m not going to stop saying anything favorable about cans, or in this case letting someone else say something positive, when I’m not convinced it’s such a terrible tragedy. Everything we do has costs: cans, bottles, kegs, and even the metal in the brewhouse equipment. Everything we do as humans has an impact on the world, but how can anyone say that one is so terrible while others are not. I mean no disrespect, but it feels a bit like the vegetarian wearing leather boots.
Vegetarian wearing leather boots? How do you figure? Because I choose to use glass, reusable when possible, I am in the same boat as someone who is a member of PETA but also eats Foi Gras? And therefore I can’t comment on it? Might as well say “By being alive you are destroying the environment and therefore can’t comment on it.” I don’t understand the logic.
I sent you the numbers. The environmental impact of aluminum mining is by far one of the worst things humans are doing on the planet. Look at Ghana, Hungary, the Great Barrier Reef, or Jamaica to start off.
And I didn’t write the comment for you, more for people visiting the site. I thought the comments in your own article were informed (BPA liners being toxic) and also dismissive (I love the guy saying my comments are BS and hypocritical but in the same breath that we should lessen our impact. How this doesn’t apply to what I was talking about I am unsure).
Everything does cost, but we can do our best to reduce our impact. This means using cloth bags for groceries, buying milk in glass, walking and biking more, eating organic, not using styrofoam. I don’t understand where the disconnect is coming from. Is your whole argument that you think cans are actually more environmentally friendly? Or similar enough to glass that we shouldn’t care?
And beer in cans does taste metallic.