CASE STUDY No. 9605
KEY WORDS= ALUMINUM CANS, LIGHTWEIGHTING
Coors Brewing Company
Golden, CO 80401
Contact: Mick Bagrosky, Director of Packaging Design. Tel: 303-277-2357.
Summary
By eliminating 12% of the aluminum in a 16-ounce beer can, the company saved 673 tons of aluminum a year, valued at more than $1.25 million in 1996 prices.
Action
Coors Brewing Company has been recognized for a number of years as a leader in waste prevention. In 1995 the company won the prestigious CONEG--Coalition of Northeastern Governors--Corporate Commitment Award for demonstrating leadership to integrate packaging waste reduction into sound management decisions and objectives. The recent further lightweighting of a 16-ounce beer can is one example. Coors was the first U.S. brewer to market beer in aluminum cans. The first cans produced for market in 1965 weighed nearly twice the weight of aluminum cans today. Through a series of improvements, generally based on reducing the thickness of aluminum, an empty 16-ounce beverage can (including the top) now weighs about three-quarters of an ounce. Minus the top, average weight of 1,000 cans was 39 lbs. in 1965 and 25 lbs. in 1996. Forecast 2000: 22.5 lbs.
Aluminum Can Thickness Graph
0.020
0.019 Average thickness (thousanths of an inch) of aluminum beverage
0.018 can body (bottom, sides)
Source: ALCOA
0.017
0.016
0.015
0.014
0.013
0.012
0.011
0.010 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1965 1969 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998
An aluminum drink container is formed by drawing a round blank of metal first into the shape of a cup and then into the fully formed bottom and side-wall. The technical term is D&I--drawn and ironed. The final step is to form the neck, where the top lid, a separate piece, is attached. Reducing the amount of metal in the solid piece that forms the bottom and walls is a complex process. The objective is to reach the minimum thickness that will enable the container to retain its shape under pressure of the contents. Each time the can bottom is made thinner, for example, the bottom dome must be reconsidered and possibly redesigned to retain shape under pressure.
Payback
Coors has been able to take lightweighting further than others in the industry. There is ample incentive to do so: each reduction of one-thousandth of an inch (0.001) reduces aluminum costs by $1 million. But the company believes it has gone about as far as possible in lightweghting the bottom and walls of the can. Further reductions in neck diameter may be possible but depend on acceptance by the buying public.
Additional waste prevented
Reducing the weight of a container yields a number of advantages aside from the
initial saving in material costs. Transport cost is reduced, for example; and chilling
takes less energy through a thinner can wall.