As the Hard Rock Stadium attempts to go green, fifty thousand aluminum cups will be replacing plastic containers for beer or liquor at Sunday’s Super Bowl. PepsiCo will also offer aluminum-based drinks. The environmental benefits of switching to aluminum are not evident. It is best to get rid of single-use cups.
To reduce its waste, the Welford Road Stadium, UK, which is home to the Leicester Tigers, began using reusable cups starting in 2019. The 18,000 pints that it sells per game can now be reused again and again, rather than being thrown away each time.
As a way of reducing plastic pollution and clogging the oceans, aluminum is becoming a popular choice for beverage containers. Aluminum is easier to recycle than plastic, and can be reused almost indefinitely. This is also a response to plastic waste. There have been reports of plastic-laden whales being washed up on beaches. It’s unclear how aluminum is better than plastic, or if it’s better than plastic. Because new aluminum requires more energy to produce than new plastic. Reusable containers, regardless of whether they are made from aluminum or plastic, are more durable than single-use items.
Troy Hottle, a Senior Environmental Sustainability and Life Cycle Analyst at the Eastern Research Group, a consulting company, says that it is difficult to choose one material over another if they are both single-use.
Virgin aluminum spokesperson says that although it takes more energy than virgin plastic to make, recycling greatly reduces this. The aluminum drink cups must be made from recycled content and recycled again to be more energy efficient than plastic. Ball Corporation, the company that makes the aluminum cups, says its new containers will use the same materials used in soda cans, which contain an average of 70 percent recycled content.
Paul Pettas, spokesperson for Centerplate, said that Hard Rock’s catering partner Centerplate hasn’t completely ruled it out of moving to reusable cups in future. He says, “We are going streamline this and find ways to improve this program. So I would say we are definitely looking into all options.” According to Pettas, Centerplate’s parent company Sodexo could make some of these improvements as it caters for the Summer Olympics.
Ocean Conservancy is pleased to announce that aluminum has been switched to its preferred material. The group is working with the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee to help them go green. The aluminum cups for this year’s Super Bowl are stronger than plastic and will feature the event logo. Game-goers may choose to reuse them rather than throw them away. George Leonard, Ocean Conservancy’s chief scientist, hopes that fans will bring the aluminum cups home to preserve them.
The NFL set a goal to send very little trash from last year’s Super Bowl to landfills. It achieved its goal of recycling, reusing or composting 91 percent of the trash that was left over from Super Bowl XLVII.
