Plastic waste is piling up in our oceans and people are searching for ways to reduce their plastic consumption. As you look for plastic alternatives, you might begin to wonder what materials are available to use instead of plastic? One of those is aluminum.
Aluminum has many benefits over plastic, like it’s endlessly recyclable. It’s also more likely to be recycle. But, plastic has its benefits as well. For instance, it takes much less energy to produce a bottle of plastic than it does a can of aluminum, and that can lead to a lower footprint.
Trying to figure out which materials you should choose if you’re looking to lower your environmental impact is a tough spot to be in. This post is going to look at the carbon footprint of aluminum and plastic, how they are recycled, their recycling rates, and more. At the end of this article, you should feel more confident about choosing materials to use in your home and knowing exactly why you made those decisions.
Carbon Footprint:
Aluminum Vs. Plastic
Let’s talk about the carbon footprint for a second. Carbon footprint refers to how much carbon is produced as a result of some process or product.
When you’re trying to figure out the carbon footprint of a product, researchers will usually tell you what contributes to their final number. That’s important because different factors can seriously change the final number.
Imagine if one study factored in distribution (trucking a water bottle from California to New York, for example) while another study didn’t. Your final carbon footprint would look very different between the two studies.
So let’s first look at a very general carbon footprint for both plastic and aluminum. Then I’ll cover what variables can change the carbon footprint of a product. Here’s a metric for reference as we look at carbon emission numbers moving forward: the EPA says the average vehicle emits abot 411 grams of carbon dioxide per mile.
Carbon Footprint Of A Plastic Bottle
Carbon Footprint of Aluminum Can
The carbon footprint of an aluminum can is 96.8 grams of carbon dioxide. That number includes the entire lifespan of the can, from extraction of raw materials to the disposal or recycling of the can.
The source for this number comes from a report on Aluminum.org. That particular article became unavailable between the drafting and publishing of this article, but this report also supports the same number.
How the Carbon Footprints Compare
Based on the carbon footprints of both plastic and aluminum, plastic has a lower environmental impact. Those numbers are based on the average 355mL and a 16.9 ounce plastic bottle. 16.9 ounces converts to roughly 500mL.
Considering that plastic holds more liquid with a lower carbon footprint, plastic defintiely shows promise if we just consider the carbon footprint and energy that goes into producing the original product. But, there are several things that can affect a carbon footprint and tip the scales. Let’s look at those next.
Variables That Affect A Carbon Footprint
Where Did Your Product Come From?
Both plastic and aluminum footprints can change based on where the product and/or materials are coming from. In other words, did it only travel 100 miles to get to your hands? Or was it made on another continent and shipped across the ocean on a giant container ship?
Some water bottles are made in other countries, like Fiji or France. Those bottles are going to have a much higher footprint than if your bottled water was sourced locally.
Some countries also have greener methods for powering production processes. Water bottles in Canada are more likely to be produced using hydropower than water bottles made elsewhere. That will significantly decrease the footprint of that specific water bottle.
Is The Product Made from Recycled Materials?
According to this article from Shapes, recycled aluminum saves 95% of the energy that goes into raw or primary aluminum products. So recycled aluminum products are going to have a drastically lower footprint compared to non-recycled aluminum content.
The same is true for plastic. According to Prevented Ocean Plastic, Recycled PET plastic produced almost 80% less carbon dioxide than virgin (new) PET according to .
Most of the carbon footprint for aluminum and plastic comes from it’s life before it gets into your hands. Whether you choose plastic or aluminum, selecting products that are made with recycled content will almost always result in a lower footprint.
Recycling
Clearly, recycling materials is important if you want to have a lower environmental impact. When thinking about recycling for this article, there are two important ways to think about it. One is whether or not you’re recycling a product at the end of its life. The other way to think about recycling, is whether or not the product you buy in the first place comes from recycled material.
So, you can basically think about the recycling that happened (or didn’t happen) before you buy a product or the recycling you’ll do when you’re done with the product.
Recycling can really help us avoid having to mine/process and use new materials. That drastically cuts energy costs in the process. But recycling has it’s downsides too. Let’s start with the flaws of recycling and then move on to terms you need to know when looking at products made from recycled materials.
Recycling Flaws
Downcycling
One major flaw with recycling plastic is that plastics aren’t always recyclable. While plastics are getting easier to truly recycle, that hasn’t always been the case. Many times, when you recycle a plastic product it actually loses some of it’s integrity or purity and can’t be turned back into what it once was.
Think of it like circling the drain (picture a downward spiral) rather than a true circular movement, where the starting point is also the end point. In a spiraling scenario, plastic eventually can’t be recycled anymore and has to go down the drain (the landfill). This whole spiraling process is actually called downcycling rather than recycling. We don’t want that.
Ideally, we would be able to use and reuse materials endlessly.
Actually Recycling
Aluminum doesn’t have downcycling concerns, thank goodness. It’s pretty much endlessly recyclable in most cases. But, recycling still has a long way to go in order to be a real solution to our waste troubles.
People just aren’t regularly recycling the materials that can be recycled. According to Aluminum.org, some 75% of aluminum produced in the U.S. is still being used today. That’s a great number but 25% is still a large portion that’s been discarded.
When it comes to plastic, things look much gloomier. In 2018 only about 9% (slightly less) of plastic was recycled, according to the EPA. That number gets a little better when you look at specific kinds of plastic bottles, coming out to about 30% of plastic produced.
Clearly, a major flaw in our recycling system is that the people consuming materials don’t dispose of them so that they can be recycled in the first place. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
We could also talk about how recycling is a for-profit industry that prioritizes easily recyclable materials. Or how we’ve been misled into thinking more items are recyclable than can actually be recycled. But, those are deserving of their own articles so I’ll save them for another time.
Recycling Terms To Know
Now, there are two important streams of recycling, particularly when it comes to aluminum. One is process recycling, the other is post-consumer recycling.
Process Recycling
Process recycling is when materials that get recycled come from a non-consumer source. These would be materials that were used at the factory, for example.
Post-Consumer Recycling
Post-consumer content would be materials that someone has purchased, used, and then recycled. Most of the time you’ll see post-consumer recycled content when you’re browsing the aisles of a grocery store. Sometimes it will be abbreviated as PCR.
Does the Material Origin Matter?
The origin of the material in your product does matter. You will pretty much always see post-consumer recycled content when shopping in the grocery store, even though it’s this kind of recycling that usually requires more effort and energy (compared to process recycling).
PCR is more challenging than process-recycled material because it’s our waste that’s getting reused. That means the items can have contaminants and are less likely to be 100% aluminum. Aluminum cans have a lining of plastic inside them, for example. That makes cans hard to recycle than a plain aluminum bar from a manufacturing factory.
What’s the Verdict? Is Plastic Or Aluminum Better?
As of today, I have to say aluminum is the most sustainable material. It might use more energy upfront, but there are a few things that have pushed it past the finish line and into winner’s territory.
Mining Trumps Oil
Both plastic and aluminum come from industries notorious for their lack of sustainability, mining and oil. However, the mining process can be done ethically and sustainably. Oil is not going to be a sustainable choice for us in any scenario, no matter what the oil giants want to tell us.
Recycling of Aluminum is Better than Plastic
Unlike aluminum, not all plastic is endlessly recyclable. So aluminum wins because recycling is more sustainably than downcycling.
Plastic also has a low recycling rate. The recycling rate for plastic can change over time, but until it does, have to take it for what it is. With a max recycling rate of 30% for certain plastic bottles, 70% of plastic bottles are getting discarded after one use. That’s simply not sustainable.
Microplastics Don’t Come from Aluminum
The final nail in the coffin for plastic is how it degrades overtime. Plastic breaks down into microplastics that pollute not only our waterways and coastal habitats, but infiltrates our seafood. So, we eventually eat the plastic that’s getting disposed today because it’s working it’s way up the food chain.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be eating microplastics for the rest of my life. As dramatic as I can be, I’m sad to say I’m not being dramatic here. If you’re eating seafood today, you are consuming plastic. Aluminum have the same environmental issue.
What You Can Do To Be Sustainable
Not every moment in your life will give you the choice to pick between aluminum or plastic. So regardless of the material you end up using, making sure that you purchase products made with recycled contents, recycling them when you’re done with the product, and reusing them as many times as you can is the most sustainable thing to do. Doing all these things will drive your environmental impact lower and lower with each reuse and recycle.
What does the future look like?
There might not be a ton of areas in your daily life where aluminum and plastic are both options for you, but I think we’ll start seeing more aluminum in the years to come. Already, major companies have begun to swap plastic for aluminum. Pepsi has started doing this with some of their water bottles. And while that sounds great, you still want to make sure you’re recycling, and pushing for companies to use recycled content in their products rather than mining for raw materials.
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