Aluminum Foil

Background

Making aluminum requires a lot of energy. In fact, the commercial development of

the metal in the late 19th century was largely due to the development and availability of
cheap and abundant hydro-electric power which is still the principal source of the industrys
energy. The energy used to produce aluminum is 'trapped' in the metal. Re-melting
aluminum to return it to new metal takes only 5% of the original energy required. So 95%
of the original energy investment always remains stored in the metal.

How Does Aluminum Foil Meet Todays Environmental Considerations?

All minerals on this planet are finite and they must be conserved and used wisely.
But without their exploitation our way of life is in question and in some cases it is very
difficult to change the way we use resources. Burning fossil fuels for heating, for example, is
likely to be with us until the end of this resource is in sight.

Compared with this example, aluminum is in a very fortunate position. One of the
most abundant elements present in the earth's crust, third only to silicon and oxygen, this
element is so plentiful that demand is never likely to exceed supply.

Used aluminum has always been an important source of 'new' metal. According to
industry estimates, about two thirds of aluminum in use is eventually recycled because it is
so much cheaper to re-melt it in its metallic form than it is to extract the metal from the
original ore.

Life Cycle of Aluminum Products

Dependent upon the use to which it is put, the life cycle of an aluminum product
varies greatly. Used in packaging, aluminum in the form of a foil food container might have a
product life cycle measured in just a few weeks. At the other extreme, as a cladding material
for buildings its life cycle may be measured in spans of anything up to a century, so
aluminum has a positive profile in terms of its plentiful availability, durability and its
propensity to be reused at very low energy cost. The positive contribution that aluminum
foil can make to conserve other resources

Environmental Impact of Aluminum Packaging

With so much attention on the environmental demands of packaging materials, it is

easy to lose sight of the environmental benefits these materials can bring. Take the case of
sterilized food preserved without refrigeration for long periods thanks to the high barrier
properties of an aluminum foil container or foil laminate pouch. Such a pack enables the
transportation and storage of valuable food resources in a minimum of space and with a
minimum of additional weight due to packing. Also, thanks to the metal's very good thermal
conductivity, the energy used to heat the food contained in the pack is minimized - a further
saving. Another example: Food can be processed in a foil container, shaped by it, carried in
it, delivered, displayed, carried home, baked or re-heated in it - all without any need for the
contents to be removed from the one container. The resulting savings of energy and
materials are considerable. Where economies facilitated by a packaging material such as
aluminum are obvious, it makes sense to use such a material, particularly when the
potential for recovery and recycling is so strong.

Recycling

That aluminum can be economically recycled, and has been since it became
commercially available more than a century ago, is a well-established fact. As a used
material it retains a positive monetary value, unlike many other packaging materials which
can cost money for disposal. The metal remains substantially intact in terms of volume and,
for one twentieth of its original extraction cost, can be re-melted to become new metal
ready for its next task. Several successful national schemes for the collection and recovery of
used beverage cans (for the production of more beverage cans) represent clear evidence
that aluminum packaging materials can be recycled with outstanding success.

Modern molten metal filtration techniques keep quality high, and the aluminum
companies greatly value this rich source of secondary metal which is available at such a
comparatively low energy cost.

What about Foil?

Although aluminum foil represents a tiny proportion of the total household waste
stream (less than 0.5%), the aluminum industry is keen to have this valuable raw material
returned.

Clean foil, such as ready-meal containers and catering trays, pie cases, kitchen foil,
dairy product lidding and non-laminated chocolate wrapping, can be easily recycled in the
secondary industry through a simple re-melt process. State-of-the-art reverberatory
furnaces, with full environmental protection, keep melt losses to a minimum and deliver the
95% energy saving common to aluminum recycling. Aluminum has secure and growing end-
markets, with much recycled metal being used for cast components, such as vehicle parts.
The light-weighting of vehicles through increased use of aluminum means even more energy
savings.

Recycling is not new to foil. For over forty years, and thanks to its metal value, used
foil from packaging has been widely collected to raise money for charity with the growing
awareness of the importance of environmental matters in recent years. European Directives,
recycling levies and land-fill taxes have now taken over where charity was once the main
driving force. All packaging materials are now subject to strict recycling and recovery
controls in Europe.
 Heavy Investment by the Aluminum Foil Industry

Without the background of environmental legislation, the aluminum industry is well

motivated to recover all the used metal it can, from whatever use. It wants to have its metal
back at a lower energy cost than virgin metal.

This is why there has been considerable investment over several years into finding
better ways to recycle the metal. For example, one major group of companies who supply
the thin foil used for the laminates for drinks cartons carried out a feasibility study which
demonstrated that it is possible to separate the metal from the plastics and board materials,
and to return the used aluminum to make more foil.

Now the same group has set up a joint venture to establish a dedicated plant to
recover the metal from drinks cartons and to recover the energy from the other materials -
mainly paper and board.

Eddy Current Technology

Separating the valuable aluminum components from a mixed waste stream has been
an important area of technical advance in recent years. The technique which exploits the
phenomenon of eddy currents set up by rapidly alternating magnetic fields and which has
the effect of separating metal-bearing items from a mixture of materials, is widely used in
the management of household and industrial waste.

The aluminum industry has been active in bringing attention to the technique and
has, in some instances, helped to sponsor trial installations designed to demonstrate its
benefits.

Recycling Foil From Laminates

Laminated packs containing aluminum foil are environmentally highly efficient,

because of their low demand on material resources compared to other packages offering
similar product protection. Low pack weight means low use of energy during distribution.

Until recently, it was considered that the metal used in foil laminates could not be
economically recycled. However, on the positive side, the energy locked into the metal can
be recovered in energy-from-waste plants.

Thanks to considerable research by the aluminum industry, ways have been found to
separate the materials, and to recover the metal. Alternative uses of the separated residues
are another valuable field of study with, in one example, the shredded aluminum foil
becoming a raw material in the production of cement products.
 Incineration

In countries where the recovery of energy from the incineration of waste is the
accepted practice, aluminum foil becomes a useful source of heat energy. Under the furnace
conditions of an incineration plant, foil releases its latent energy by combining with oxygen
to release heat. Although aluminum foil is a tiny proportion of the total waste stream, it is
nonetheless a positive fuel substitute, helping to reduce the amount of fossil fuel needed to
sustain the incineration process.

During oxidation, aluminum gives off no polluting or green house gas and the
resulting residue represents the return of the metal to aluminum oxide, an inert compound
similar to that from which the metal was originally extracted. In less pure forms, aluminum
oxide occurs in most soils, and disposal of this residue is therefore totally safe.

Landfill

Throughout the world, efforts are being made to minimize landfill waste disposal.
Even if aluminum foil must be included in waste destined for landfill, it has the virtue of non-
toxicity. Aluminum adds no poisonous compounds to the soil or ground water. Left to the
effects of natural decomposition, the metal will very gradually oxidize over a period of
many years returning to aluminum oxide without the emission of gas or pollutants. The rate
at which this happens will, of course, depend on whether and how the metal is coated or
laminated.

By reducing the metals contact with oxidizing agents, some coatings will preserve
the metal for periods of many years. Eventually, however, it inevitably returns to nature.

Source Reduction

In parallel with recycling and recovery, source reduction is an important method of

minimizing the effect of packaging materials on our environment. For many years, the use of
less and less metal to do a given job without loss of performance has been a challenge
welcomed by the foil industry.

Considerable achievements have been made with savings in some instances of

around 30% compared with 20 years ago.

This has been facilitated through improvements in casting and rolling techniques,
more sophisticated measuring controls and equipment, and the development and use of
alloys designed for specific applications - so called tailored alloys.

Aluminum foil, used in packaging, is itself an enabling factor in the minimization of

materials. A laminate incorporating a foil layer needs much less paper or plastic to perform a
given barrier task than a laminate without foil. Foil containers enable serious collateral
processing savings to be made thanks to its ability to act as a receptacle throughout the
whole of the food preparation and distribution.
 EAFA also encourages the industry's customers to take source reduction seriously,
and through its own publicity and the European Aluminum Foil Packaging Awards seeks to
promote this aspect in the application of its members' products.

The Drive Continues

The reduction in the use of all materials including coatings, supporting laminates, the
recovery of such things as solvents, the installation of more fuel-efficient annealing furnaces
etc. will continue to be high priorities of the industry. In such cases, optimizing resources
equates to the maximizing of economic success - a powerful motivator which is quite apart
from the increasing number of regulatory environmental measures which face all industries.