Trashed Cans : The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America

"Trashed Cans: The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America" documents the rise in aluminum beverage can wasting over the last thirty years.: from less than 5 billion cans (approximately 100,000 tons) wasted in 1971, to 50.7 billion cans (760,000 tons) wasted in 2001. The report details the global environmental and energy related consequences of replacing wasted cans with new cans made from virgin materials. Had the cans wasted in 2001 been recycled, they could have saved the equivalent of 16 million barrels of crude oil, and avoided the production of 3 million of tons of greenhouses gases, and hundreds of thousands of tons of NOx, Sox, toxic flourides, volatile organic carbons, and many other air and water pollutants. The report describes locations around the world where environmentally damaging hydroelectric dams have been either built or planned primarily to supply energy to aluminum smelters. The report outlines the main reasons for the recycling decline, including away-from-home consumption and declining financial incentives to recycle. Finally, it presents solutions to reverse the wasting trend, including deposit legislation ("bottle bills"), which internalizes the social and environmental costs of aluminum can manufacturing and disposal and shifts those costs from taxpayers to producers and consumers.Gitlitz, Jennifer is the author of 'Trashed Cans : The Global Environmental Impacts of Aluminum Can Wasting in America', published 2002 under ISBN 9781931976039 and ISBN 1931976031.