ENVIRONMENTAL CASE STUDY

Steel food cans

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) case studies use a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach to measure the potential
greenhouse gas impacts from all stages of manufacture, product use and end-of-life. worldsteel has developed this series of case
studies to demonstrate the reduction of CO2 emissions through the use of high-performance steels.

A healthy and sustainable food

packaging solution

Todays trend toward urbanisation increases the importance

of good packaging methods for foods. Food packaging
must be safe, maintain nutritional value and have a positive
environmental impact.
Steel cans meet these requirements in an environmentally
responsible way. It is a sustainable solution that offers
significant advantages over alternative food packaging systems.

Food for a changing world

The worlds population is approaching 7 billion people (from
2.5 billion in 1950), with almost all the growth expected in the
cities of less-developed countries. In 2008, for the first time
in history, more than half of the worlds population is living
in towns and cities. By 2030 this number will swell to almost
5 billion, with urban growth concentrated in Africa and
Asia. Unlike mega-cities, towns and smaller cities have fewer
resources to respond to the magnitude of the change.1
Access to fresh food will become a challenge. This places
greater emphasis on reliable packaging, storage and
distribution systems. Food safety, nutritional value and
environmental impact will become even more important than
they are today.
Consumers in developed countries have come to expect a
continuous supply of diverse foods. A complex modern global
food system allows us to live and shop for groceries far away
from where the food was produced and processed.
The movement of products from field to market requires
significant processing and packaging to preserve food. Also,
it takes time to deliver food to the dinner table. About 35% of
perishable food products are lost, or go to waste, after they are
harvested.2
Time is a major factor for fresh or frozen food because energy
is needed to extend or preserve the life and nutritional value of
the food until it can be eaten. The time factor is less important
in the case of canned food, because the nutritional benefits are
locked inside the package.
Time is also an important factor when considering the
variety of food that is available to consumers. Most fruits and
vegetables are seasonal. However, canned fruits and vegetables
offer consumers the variety they want all year round.

Steel cans maintain the nutrition in foods for a long time

Environmental impact of food delivery systems

A growing population puts more pressure on the environment.
Although foods that are fresh and locally-grown in a
sustainable way will clearly have the smallest carbon footprint,
alternative methods for delivering food to consumers will
continue to be important.
Frozen food and canned food are the two most common
delivery formats. The unique attributes of steel give cans
significant environmental advantages.
In a 2007 study by the Institute for Environmental Research
and Education, the environmental impacts from canning
and freezing green beans were compared using life cycle
assessment (LCA).3 The scope of the study covered the
preservation of green beans from the time they are delivered
to the packaging plant until they arrive at the wholesale
customer.
The analysis determined that for a wide range of indicators,
canned green beans have equal or lower environmental impacts
than the frozen beans (Table 1).
Using these results, it can be estimated that each additional
tonne of steel that goes into food cans, displacing a frozen
product, saves 6.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
If it is assumed that GHG savings associated with green beans
are representative for the majority of canned food products,
it is also possible to calculate total savings from the use of
canned food cans. Each year, this translates into a total GHG
emission saving of 68 million tonnes CO2 equivalent when
compared to frozen foods.
worldsteel.org

ENVIRONMENTAL CASE STUDY

Canned versus Frozen Summary (Table 1)

Impact category

Improvement canning
over freezing %

Global warming

39

Acidification

100

Human health cancer

150

Human health non-cancer

9.1

Eutrophication

1.2

Ecotoxicity

28

Ozone depletion

1.3

Smog

32

Criteria air average

59

Total water use

0.3

Fossil fuel depletion

75

These figures compare well with a study on canned food by

Scientific Certification Systems commissioned by the Steel
Recycling Institute. It also showed that canning uses less
energy than freezing.

The impact of recycling

One of the most important attributes of steel is that it is
infinitely recyclable without loss of key properties such as
strength, ductility or formability. Steels magnetic properties
make it the easiest packaging material to pull out of the waste
stream for recycling.
Country/Region
Brazil

Canada

European Union

South Korea

Recycled
Recycling
tonnage (000) rate %
284

49

109

66

101

69

2,560

69

Canning operation in the US

The steel can is the worlds most recycled container. The

worldwide recycling rate was 68% in 2007. In the US, the
overall recycling rate in 2009 for steel cans was 66.8% 4,
significantly higher than aluminium (57.4%)5, glass containers
(31%)6, plastic bottles (27.8 %)7 and paper (63.4%)8.
Globally, more than 7.2 million tonnes of steel packaging
was recycled in 2007. According to worldsteel LCA data, this
saved 11 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents which would have
come from new steel production. This saving is equivalent
to taking approximately 280,000 cars off the road. Each can
recycled saves about twice its weight of CO2.
This recycling effort resulted in the equivalent savings over
26 billion kW hours of electricity, or the electricity needs of
2.5 million households for a year.

Did you know?

Studies show that canned tomatoes

contain as much or more vitamin C than
fresh tomatoes.

Japan

707

85

Turkey

101

35

It is safe to heat food in shallow and

wide-open steel cans in a microwave oven.

Cans are made from tinplated steel sheet

as thin as 0.15 mm. The layer of tin
prevents corrosion of the can.

South Africa
US

China
Total

155

70

1,592

65

7,206

68

1,597

75

Last updated: May 2011

Footnotes

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

State of World Population 2007: Unleashing the Potential of Urban Growth, United Nations Population Fund, accessed online at www.unfpa.org, on 16
July 2007.
Argenti, Olivio. Feeding the Cities: Food Supply and Distribution, Achieving Urban Food and Nutrition Security in the Developing World,
August 2000.
Canning Green Beans, Ecoprofile of Truitt Brothers Process , Institute for Environmental Research and Education, 2007.
2009 Steel Recycling Rates, Steel Recycling Institute, accessed online at http://www.recycle-steel.org on 24 May 2011.
Industry statistics, The Aluminum Association, accessed online at http://www.aluminum.orgon 24 May 2011.
Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2009, US Environmental Protection Agency,
accessed online at http://www.epa.gov on 24 May 2011.
US bottle recycling rate rises to 27.8 percent, PlasticsNews.com, accessed online at http://plasticsnews.com/headlines2.html?id=20462 on 24 May 2011
American Forest and Paper Association, accessed online at http://www.afandpa.org/ourindustry.aspx?id=438&terms=63.4 on 24 May 2011.

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