Fascinating facts about metal cans
The steel can was first developed in the early 1800s by an Englishman, Peter Durand, to solve the problem of keeping food fresh for soldiers at the battlefront. He didn't invent the can opener at the same time, unfortunately, so you needed a hammer and chisel to get at the contents.
Aluminium cans arrived much later, in the 1960s. They have always been used mainly for drinks, with easy-open lids or pourers, and are much lighter than the steel equivalent. In fact, they're getting lighter all the time - today's cans are half the weight of the early ones.
The UK's thirsty population gets through nearly 5,000 million aluminium drink cans every year. Set tidily on the floor, they would fill a warehouse 3 miles long by 3 miles wide. And we use even more steel cans - three times more, in fact.
Recycling metal cans
Metal cans are completely recyclable. They can be melted down and used over and over again to make new cans or longer-lived products such as bikes, cars and aeroplanes.
And cans are one of the easiest types of waste material to collect and recycle. It's well worth taking the trouble, because by recycling these valuable metals we will:
- save energy
- save natural resources
- reduce landfill
In the UK, we use an average of 240 steel food cans per person every year. So if you're anything like the average, you'll be throwing away about 20 of these cans a month, for each person in your household. Not to mention all the aluminium drinks cans.
Why recycle metal cans?
Recycling steel and aluminium cans is a relatively simple process. They are separated into the two kinds (by large electro-magnets which attract steel but not aluminium) then melted down. Once the impurities have been burned or skimmed off, the metal can be re-used to make new products. The environmental advantages are very convincing:
Recycling cans saves energy because melting them down takes much less heat than manufacturing new metal. For steel you need only about a quarter of the energy, and for aluminium only about a twentieth.
Recycling cans saves natural resources because the raw ingredients for both steel and aluminium have to be mined out of the ground, and it obviously makes sense to re-use what we already have. Mining carries a risk of environmental pollution, as well as using energy.
Recycling cans reduces landfill because although they are a fairly small proportion of household waste (about 4%), up to now most of them have ended up in local landfill sites.
The Council is committed to increasing the amount of household waste we recycle. Please use your Blue Box and Blue Bags to the full.
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