Design, Production & Ethical issues

Aluminium cans

 

Approximately 1 billion are produced in the USA each year. The first can was designed in 1958 by Kaiser Aluminium. This metal proved ideal as it was a lightweight, flexible material that allowed manufacturing of the bottom & sides of the can from a single sheet, leaving the top to be added after the can was filled.

The first cans were opened with a separate opener but this was inconvenient so Ermal Fraze designed a small lever attached to the can which was removed as the can was opened.

The design was workable but after a while it created an ethical dilemma:

The ethical dilemma created was a health hazard for people because the discarded aluminium tabs on the top of the can could lead to a sharp bleeding if it contact a human body, in addition it was an environmental hazard due to the wasted tabs on the floors, streets and even in the sea.

So in 1976 Daniel F. Cudzik invented a simple, stay-attached opener of the sort familiar today.

As improvements were made in the design & production of aluminium cans, various ethical problems arose concerning:

a. Human safety: The top section of the aluminium tab will be exposed to the ambience so any dust or polluted particles will transfer to the liquid within the can when the tab will be internally opened.

b. Environmental pollution: Although an aluminium can is recyclable unfortunately there are millions of aluminium cans waiting for recycling processes and so they are landfilled and pollution is created along with landfilling.

c. Convenience: The aluminium cans production and recycling factories requires hydropower dams linked to them in order to achieve the smelting process and for such application, large land space area is needed which will displace thousands of people.

d. Money:  Firstly, aluminium is produced using bauxite which is a finite resource found in Australia. Secondly, the costs depend on the recycling quantity; if there are sufficient amounts of wasted aluminium cans, the production cost of one aluminium can will decrease as the amount of recyclable cans is increasing because aluminium could be recycled again and again.