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LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 510.84 *o.2>30 ' AUG. 51.976 Ihe person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN itffr PR IPR ran at * i i L . dr JUL 1980 JUN 1 DEC * & fflP L161 — O-1096 0. w fcu< i ENGINEERING LIBRARY .^3 y^ SHY OF ILLINOIS CONFERENCE ROD!, ;3ANA, ILLINOIS lutation UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN URBANA, ILLINOIS 61801 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/systemenergyrecyOOhann CAC Document No. 23 Revised SYSTEM ENERGY AND RECYCLING: A STUDY OF THE BEVERAGE INDUSTRY By Bruce Hannon Assistant Professor of General Engineering and Staff Member with Center for Advanced Computation Center for Advanced Computation University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign Urbana, Illinois 61801 January 5, 1972 Revised March .17, 1973 ABSTRACT An energy analysis has been performed on the soft drink, beer and milk container systems. The study shows that the energy required to de- liver a unit of beverage to the consumer is about three times more in throwaway glass containers than in returnable bottles or bimetallic cans. The energy cost of recycling glass (collecting, separating and remelting) is greater than the comparable cost of mining materials for new bottles. All aluminum cans are about 38% more energy intensive than bimetallic cans. The retail dollar purchase is about 30 percent more for soft drink throwaways, and slightly higher if litter and solid waste disposal costs are added. To complete this study it was necessary to examine the metal, paper, glass and plastics industries in considerable detail. Table 8 summarizes some additional important and interesting results concerning the container materials. Also, a summary of the energy ratios derived in this report is given in Table 9. Hopefully this paper provides a quantitative method for analyzing complex industrial-commercial-environmental problems. It is further hoped that the paper stimulates other energy investigations for the purpose of taking a truer measure of the effects of our technology. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page GENERAL 1 THE PROBLEM 3 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM 4 THE ENERGY ANALYSIS 11 The Returnable and Throwaway Systems 13 Material Acquisition for New Glass. 14 Transportation of Raw Materials 15 Container Manufacture 15 Transportation to the Bottler 15 Bottling, Packaging, and Transportation to the Outlet 16 The Retail Outlet and the Consumer 16 Collection and Hauling of Discarded Glass 17 Separation and Sorting of Glass 17 Transportation of Reclaimed Glass to Reprocessor 18 CONCLUSION 18 REFERENCES,, 24 GENERAL Recycling is a complex problem. Most everyone agrees that the recycling of consumed resources promotes a more desirable environment. We recognize that the materials which constitute most of our goods, are finite. The dispersal of these materials into landfills is therefore viewed as wasteful of both land and materials. These materials should somehow be reintroduced into our system of consumption. A simplistic view of such a system is to return the used item to its point of manufacture; i. e. , an abandoned auto is dismembered and the steel is returned to the steel companies, discarded glass bottles are returned to the bottle manufacturer, etc. This is a highly simplified recognition of the law of conservation of mass. However, little public or scientific environmental attention has been given to a companion physical law, that of conservation of energy. Energy resources are also finite and also cause environmental degrada- tion when consumed too rapidly. Full pollution control may ultimately be achieved, but there is no alternative to resource depletion. A consideration of both laws lets us decide when and where to re- introduce the used material or whether a material form needed to be created in the first place. The object of this paper is to present an example system in which both of these physical laws can be used to describe a recycling process in the packaging industry. If any generality can be gained from the example, it is that recycling of mass should be accomplished at the earliest opportun- ity, in order to use the least mass and the least energy of the alternatives available to perform a desired service. A second and equally important purpose is to introduce least-energy systems analysis as a means of system choice. The rising cost of energy due to the internalization of environmental costs, the fluctuating foreign supplies and the decrease in certain proved energy reserves in the U.S. (1) all lead to use of energy systems analysis solely for extending survival. In an energy shortage, the most efficient energy systems will dom- inate, but we must also soon question the need of the quantity consumed in providing a given quality of life. In other words, there is an extremely important distinction between evaluating system efficiency and evaluating system energy flow; the former is primarily an engineering matter, the latter is mainly a societal one. Had energy not been so accessible and therefore so cheap in the U.S. , many systems might not be so extensive and in use today, e. g. , the automobile, the alumnium industry, the packaging industry, etc. But energy is rapidly becoming expensive. Dr. David Schwartz, assis- tant chief of the Office of Economics of the Federal Power Commission estimates that the internalization of environmental costs alone will raise the cost of electricity about one cent per kilowatt hour which should more than double the current industrial prices. We therefore must plan for least-energy-consuming systems. In fact, some hold that energy is the real currency in systems made of living components. Under this view, items would have as their true value the resource energy committed in their manufacturing. This type of pricing reflects wasted energy and dwindling energy resources, as well as the scarcity of the mass involved. THE PROBLEM The packaging industry has blossomed in the last few years with the American consumer paying about $25 billion in 1966 for packaging, ninety per cent of which was discarded (2). By 1971 the packaging industry had become an even larger multibillion dollar interest which opposes the reduction of the amount of materials used in wrapping, sack- ing, canning, bottling and otherwise protecting and selling merchandise to the consuming public. Based on convenience appeal to our increasingly mobile society, advertising campaigns, principally by container manufacturers, have convinced a public that the throwaway container works in their best interest. But litter, problems in solid waste disposal, high consumer purchase cost, and resource drain are fostering a worthy adversary to the packaging syndrome. Nowhere is this conflict more clearly underscored than in the pack- aging of beer and soft drinks. These two commodities alone constitute a major portion of the food and beverage consumed by the U.S. public and about one-half of all beverage and food containers (2). The purchase price for soft drinks in throwaway glass is thirty per cent more than when it is sold in returnable containers (20). Added to this are litter pickup and hauling and landfill costs, paid by the con- sumer through monthly billings from trash haulers and state and municipal taxes. There are, in addition, the environmental costs of material and energy production paid in terms of health and aesthetic losses such as lung damage from power plant emissions and land strip mined for coal. Were these costs tabulated and presented to the consumers at the time of purchase, consumers would at least know the true cost of packaging might choose to buy less expensive returnable containers. A recent con- sumer survey in Illinois (25) indicates a preference for the returnable soft drink container. On the other hand, the packaging people have wedged themselves into the economic web causing a redistribution of labor. Labor, as well as the packaging industry, is opposed to a reduction in the volume of throwaway containers. One wonders if a reduction in the use of the earth's capital supplies of energy might actually mean an increase in the need for human energy and consequently fuller employment. Indeed, Professor Hugh Folk (23) has shown that a return to returnable bottles would cause a net increase of 1500 jobs in Illinois. THE EVOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM The first efforts at market conversion to one-way beverage con- tainers were made by the steel industry in the late forties and early fifties. Together with the major can companies they viewed the beer and soft drink market as the last major expension area for steel cans. With returnable bottles averaging about forty trips, it was clear that forty cans would be needed to replace each returnable bottle over a period of six to eight months. Aluminum companies made their entrance into the market in the mid to late fifties introducing the all-aluminum beer can. Aluminum has since appeared in the tops of steel beer and soft drink cans to facili- tate opening. A surprisingly early success of cans was found in the ghetto areas of major cities. The generally small family storage and cooling space of the inner city dweller requires purchases of one cooled package per visit to the market. Purchased in such a way, the three to four cent deposit per returnable bottle lacked the aggregate appeal of a returning case of bottles. Further, the process of reacquiring the deposit appears to be very demeaning for the inner city proud but poor (8).

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