16oz Brushed Aluminum bottle
At Elemental Container we have been offering 2,4,6,8 and 10oz brushed aluminum bottles from stock and in small quantities for more than 15 years. Following request from our customers we are proud to introduce our latest addition. This 16oz bottle is 66mm x 200mm with a 28/410 thread. It is available from stock in small quantities. We also carry matching closures.
Contact us today to get your free samples. 800-577-7624 or eci@elementalcontainer.com
There’s an excellent article in the Aluminum Association about the benefits of “downweighting”.
I guess “downweighting” is now part of our lexicon, just like “downsizing”.
In another Aluminum Association article, an aluminum industry executive is quoted as saying “A transition to strong, affordable and carbon-reducing aluminum already is underway, which will enable cars and trucks to get lighter – not necessarily smaller – and more fuel efficient. As both NHTSA and EPA have agreed, such a transition is a good thing both for consumers and the environment . . .”
You could substitute the terms cars and trucks in the quote with a variety of products – wine bottles, beer bottles, perfume bottles, pharmaceutical bottles, etc. – and you would get the same benefits.
In a previous post, I talked about the weight advantages of aluminum bottles vs. steel drums.
I hope companies will better understand the advantages of aluminum bottles and actively pursue downweighting their products.
I’ve blogged about aluminum bottles for perfumes a couple of times.
Scentsy Aluminum Bottle
We designed a beautiful bottle for one of our customers, the French parfumeur Molinard. It’s still one of my favorite aluminum bottles.
I just came across a new aluminum bottle for a room spray. Finally! I’ve been waiting for something like this for some time now.
The folks from Scentsy, are repackaging one of their room sprays in aluminum bottles instead of the usual glass and plastic bottles we normally see. Their aluminum bottles will have a spray pump, and a crimped aluminum top to minimize leaking.
I think it’s a good move by Scentsy. Aluminum bottles should help keep light, oxygen and other environmental factors from degrading the room spray essences too quickly, far better than plastic or glass.
Niche, a Canadian manufacturer of premium hair care products, makes a compelling case for the use of aluminum bottles.
Here’s their justification for the use of aluminum bottles, straight out of their website:
Niche Aluminum Bottle
” So, why aluminum? Aluminum can be recycled endlessly, whereas even recyclable plastic has a limit to how many times it can be recycled before it ends up in a landfill, ocean, park, or animal’s stomach.
Aluminum is valuable, and highly sought after by recyclers and therefore even if it is thrown on the street, it will not lay there for long before someone picks it up for the recycle value.
As a packaging material aluminum is excellent, since it does not rust like metal does, and is more sturdy than plastic.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
But what really got my attention – I was actually quite stunned – was Niche’s mention of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is a floating garbage dump of plastic waste in the North Pacific Ocean that covers an area the size of the continental USA! Pretty disgusting – and one of the most compelling arguments to quit plastic and go aluminum.
Reused Aluminum Bottles
Some folks from the Homebrewchatter.com, a forum dedicated to homebrewers, recently discussed the use of used commercial aluminum beer bottles to fill with their own home brewed beers!
Personally I think it’s a great idea. I know other people have made fuel tanks and even stoves out of used aluminum bottles. It just demonstrates the durability of these bottles and their “green” advantages.
I’d be extra careful about labeling the re-used aluminum bottles though. You could end up taking a swig of gasoline rather than than beer 🙂
Pratt
A class at Pratt Institute decided to focus attention on the use of existing water fountains around campus as refilling stations, using aluminum bottles, of course.
They decided to create a branding system that would make it easy for students to find the water fountains. They even came up with a catchy phrase – “Tap at Pratt” and created designs for signage and posters using blue, white and straight lines.
I would have gone further and branded the aluminum bottles themselves with the “Tap at Pratt” logo.
For me – this is such a great idea. I had a previous post about water refilling stations at Chicago airports. There are a lot more schools than airports so the impact of this initiative of Pratt could be significant, especially if other schools follow suit.
I am always queasy about drinking directly from public water fountains. With an aluminum bottle, I can do a quick refill and be on my way.
Aluminum Association Logo
In its 2010 life cycle analysis (LCA), the Aluminum Association made the bold claim that aluminum is “the world’s most sustainable beverage container.”
You can view the study results yourself here: www.aluminum.org/lca. The study pointed out the following “green” improvements of the aluminum industry:
Beer Truck
I recently compared the weights of one-gallon bottles in glass, plastic, tin and aluminum and surmised that aluminum provides advantages in physical distribution of consumer products like beer simply because of its lighter weight.
A study in Germany confirms my instincts. The Wuppertal Institute conducted a study and concluded that since the average aluminum beer can weighs less than an ounce, while a glass bottle is close to 6 ounces, the latter results in higher greenhouse-gas emissions, since heavier items need more fuel to transport. In fact, they estimate that the trucking of glass bottles generates 20 percent more greenhouse gases than aluminum cans.
The analysis applies to both aluminum bottles and cans with the former having the added advantage of being resealable. Let’s hope we’ll see more beer trucks carrying aluminum bottles in the near future.
This is a follow-on to my previous post on the weight advantages of aluminum.
In that post, I compared the weights of one-gallon bottles made of aluminum, plastic, glass, and tin. Aluminum emerged as one of the lightest bottles, second only to plastic, which has well-known environmental negatives.
The weight advantages of aluminum across the value chain are clearly being recognized by some of the most innovative beer brewers around the world. The 16-Mile Brewing Company packages its beer line in aluminum bottles. According to the company, “During the initial transport to the restaurant or retailer, distributors report that with the lighter aluminum bottles they can place more cases on a pallet. This means that less shipments are needed and less trucks are on the road, thus reducing fuel consumption and emissions.”
From a consumer perspective, the light weight aluminum bottles also means greater convenience and less personal energy consumption. After all, the average glass beer bottle weighs about 6-7 oz compared to 1 oz for an aluminum bottle. You can lug a lot more beers in aluminum bottles than in glass.
I posted a while back about some college organizations at the University of Utah pushing for the elimination of plastic bottles in their campuses. It seems high school students are now joining the effort.
Students in Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey are now using new aluminum water bottles. Their goal is to make their school plastic-bottle free. As you can see in the photo, the bottles are customized with the school’s acronym and with different colors for various graduating classes.
The aluminum bottle is clearly becoming ingrained in the popular culture and the fact that high school students are adopting them is another unmistakable indication of this trend.
Now if Justin Bieber started suporting an aluminum bottle, one can only imagine the huge impact on other high schools.
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