April 12, 2023
Is it in our best interest to make the switch from plastic use to more aluminum resources? With the fight against world climate change thickening, it’s crucial that we do our part in cutting down on producing greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Also, cutting back all the landfill trash that is filled with plastic is due to people only recycling about 10% of their plastic use and about 50% of their aluminum use. Now some will say that glass is a better
source than both minerals. However, we want to also to maintain a great level of safety when handling cleaning products inside of a glass bottle comes with quite a few hazards, but we’ll get to that later.
When looking from the environmental impact lens, plastic is much more hazardous than aluminum.
Aluminum is infinitely recyclable (meaning it does not lose its quality when recycled unlike plastic) and recycling aluminum saves more than 90% of the energy needed to make new aluminum. Whereas many plastics in use today cannot be recycled at all as they’re difficult to get rid of since they don’t degrade or decompose. And when they are recycled, they lose their quality and continue to drop in quality until it can no longer be recycled. Therefore, making aluminum is a much more sustainable alternative to plastic. (https://www.ecoreplenishers.co.uk, August 5 th , 2020)
Health Benefits
Humans unknowingly consume microplastics from drinking bottled water. Ingesting
microplastics has been linked to health problems, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and stroke.
When plastic bottles sit in your hot car or rest on the grocery store shelf for extended periods of time, chemicals that were used to create the plastics seep into the water. One chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA, is added in the manufacturing process to make the material more flexible. It can be released when the bottle is heated up, or even just left in the sun during a picnic. This chemical alone is linked to many health problems. As for aluminum bottles, the contents have been shown to remain clean. Many myths about the supposed health hazards of aluminum have now been debunked by researchers. It is very safe to drink from aluminum and continue refilling the bottle many times after, while plastic will slowly leach BPA and other chemicals into the drinking water if you continue to refill it.
