John Heylin, who runs the Nor Cal Beer Guide, has an interesting article he posted today about the untold costs of aluminum cans, entitled Why Craft Breweries Should Stop Using Cans. In it, his main argument is that while cans have benefits once they’re made, that the process of creating aluminum cans have significant costs to the environment from the mining and processing of them. I hadn’t ever thought about it from that angle, and it’s certainly worth looking into further. He concludes with this.
The bottom line is this: aluminum is in no way environmentally friendly. Sure, after it is ripped from the Earth, smelted, shipped, refined, and made into a product it is easily recyclable and very light weight, but the cost is far too great. The cost to the environment and to the people living around these areas is just too much. Clean aluminum is like the myth of clean coal, it’s a total lie.
So what about glass? Heylin remarks that “at least glass comes from sand, is reusable, and when thrown away goes back to sand. Aluminum? It lasts forever.” I’m assuming, though, that taking sand and turning it into glass also has environmental costs associated with it, though what they are I don’t know off the top of my head.
In the end, I really don’t know how to balance which does the greater harm or is gentler on the planet. It seems no matter what we choose, some harm is done. I’m certainly not willing to give up packaged beer while so many other manufactured goods, and for that matter entire industries, are doing far worse damage. I guess today I’ll stick with draft beer. But wait, isn’t that one big aluminum can? Damn. Okay, I guess I’ll search out a wooden cask. Hold up, isn’t that chopping down forests for the wood? In the Joe Jackson song Cancer, a line in the chorus is “everything gives you cancer” and at one point in the song just after singing that line, a piano riff begins and Jackson yells out, “hey, don’t play that piano.” And in a sense, I guess my point is, like the song, that everything causes some harm and choices have to be made. Every brewery is built with mined metal, industrial processing plants, smelting, iron and steel, and goodness knows what else.
Should we try to make responsible choices? Of course. But in a world where every decision has consequences, and usually bad ones, even Thomas Hobson might have trouble making a choice.
Still, it’s always good to consider and rethink our assumptions on a regular basis. Any day that makes us think is a good day, in my opinion, at least, even if it’s driving me to drink.
Another point worth considering is that of what is inside the can. All beer cans are lined with a very thin layer of plastic. Brewers and craft beer aficionados rightly point out that this keeps the beer from ever contacting the metal and thus it retains its wonderful beer flavor. However, all beer can linings are made with the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) which is necessary to maintain the integrity of the lining in contact with the acidic beer environment. BPA is a synthetic estrogenic compound which may adversely effect human health. It has been implicated in cancer and current research is looking at its role in the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome. This is the same chemical that prompted Nalgene to change the composition of their bottles and Sigg to change the lining in their bottles. No conclusive data exists yet though on its specific health effects in humans and, to my knowledge, nobody has even looked at BPA levels in canned beer. However, BPA has been found to exist in detectable (albeit low) levels in canned soft drinks which is enough to make me think twice about hopping on the canned craft beer bandwagon.
My understanding, though I’m hardly an expert, is that the can companies have been using what they’re calling an “organic polymer” — at least that’s what I’ve been told — but I can’t say if that’s just framing. Though it certainly bears looking into further.
My father worked for Continental Can Company for years. Besides developing the plastic beverage bottle, he worked on beverage cans for years.
Hate to say it, but he does not buy beer in cans. Bottles all the way. He saw some instances where the coating wasn’t cured all the way — and completely dissolved in the beverage.
As for as the “environmental” costs of aluminum vs. glass — the article is complete hogwash. I’m sure the guy drives a car — made with steel that has been “ripped from the Earth,” etc.
Hiya Jay – I looked pretty closely at the issue, at least in an Australian context, for GMagazine (an environmental magazine). It’s not cut and dried for glass over aluminium, but the best seems to be walking to the pub with refillable growlers and filling them with draught beer!
You can see the article here…http://www.gmagazine.com.au/features/1090/bottles-versus-cans-versus-kegs?page=0%2C1
I’m sure it’s broadly applicable to the US.
What of the opportunity cost of growing Barley for beer instead of food for the poor? And the environmental impact of watering all that grain? And the carbon food print of harvesting, transporting, malting, etc. It’s all so much to think about. I think I need a beer.
Really… is this a conversation to be taken seriously……
I love the phrases used “after it is ripped from the Earth”…. come on get a grip. The minerals, metals and material mined from the earth make the way we live today possible. Why go after cans that use maybe a few grams of material and as opposed to airplanes and automobiles that use ton and tons of aluminum…. I sure hope if we go into the kitchen of the author we do not find any aluminum foil being used… that would just by hypocritical wouldn’t it…. We can all do things in a way to lessen our impact on the environment, but too many people go way way way overboard on this issue.