Between classic Coca Cola, Coke Zero and Diet Coke, 37.7 billion cans are sold each year (excluding the other cans that are produced and not sold) (gizmodo.com). Think about the aluminum and paint required to produce this unfathomable amount of Coke cans. Here are some numbers (from a simple Google search): 1 empty can = 13.6 grams = 0.0299828677 pounds. .029983 x 37.7 billion cans = 1,130,359,100 pounds of aluminum per year…or, 565, 179.55 tons of aluminum. Painting all of these cans is one of the biggest polluters during Coke’s production process (air and water pollution from its coloring process and then the energy required to separate the paint from the aluminum during a can’s recycling process).
Now I’m not a fan of aluminum cans to begin with, but Coke has definitely taken a step in the right direction. In order to offset the staggering amount of paint required to put Coke’s logo, nutrition facts, ingredients, etc. on each of these cans, Coke has introduced a naked, paint-less can. And to be honest, it looks (more…)