Eric Onstad reports for Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) – Global bottled water giants are ramping up trials of easily recyclable aluminum cans to replace plastic that pollutes the world’s seas. Sound like a slam-dunk for the environment? Not entirely.
Aluminum cans might indeed mean less ocean waste, but they come with their own eco-price: the production of each can pumps about twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as each plastic bottle.
French group Danone (DANO.PA) has become the latest company to make a move, telling Reuters it had started to replace some plastic bottles with aluminum cans for local water brands in Britain, Poland and Denmark.
The shift, previously unannounced, comes as multinational rivals like Coca-Cola Co (KO.N), PepsiCo (PEP.O) and Nestle (NESN.S) are also launching some canned versions of water brands.
The beverage industry has been scrambling to react to public anger over scenes of huge piles of plastic waste contaminating oceans, pledging to step up recycling efforts.
However, it’s not black and white on the green front. By increasing recycling via cans, companies could fall back in efforts to reduce their carbon footprints, illustrating the tough juggling act they can face to keep environmentally conscious investors, campaigners and consumers on-side.
“That’s the dilemma you’re going to have to choose between,” said Ruben Griffioen, sustainability manager of packaging materials at Heineken, adding the company was trying to reduce both plastic waste and emissions.
Recycling plastic is more complex, leads to degradation and has lower reuse rates than aluminum – so the metal has been heralded as a greener alternative. Cans have on average 68% recycled content compared to just 3% for plastic in the United States, Environmental Protection Agency data shows.
New water brands are also making a splash.
“Mananalu will rid the world of plastic water containers and start a wave of change,” says the website of the new canned water launched by Hollywood actor Jason Momoa, of Aquaman fame. Another entrant, Liquid Death, meanwhile, hails its “eco-friendly cans” and uses the hashtag #DeathtoPlastic.
“The aluminum industry can play on the fact that its product is infinitely recyclable, and they’re right,” said Martin Barrow, director of footprinting at UK-based non-profit consultancy the Carbon Trust.
“But primary aluminum uses huge amounts of electricity and it’s also got some chemical releases of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Comparing the carbon footprints of aluminum and plastics is a complex calculation because making the metal with hydropower instead of fossil fuels reduces emissions while using recycled aluminum slashes it even further.
But when all types of metal are averaged out, however, cans still account for about double the greenhouse gases of plastic bottles, Barrow said, citing figures for Europe.
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