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 paper to demonstrate the reduction of CO2 emissions through the use of high-performance steels.

A healthy and sustainable food

packaging solution
Todays trend towards 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 world population has reached 7.3 billion people (from 2.5
billion in 1950) and is projected to reach 9.7 billion in 20501 with
Steel cans maintain the nutrition in foods for a long time
almost all the growth expected in the cities of less-developed
countries. In 2014, more people lived in urban areas than in rural
areas, with 54 per cent of the worlds population residing in urban Environmental impact of food delivery systems
areas (compared to 30 per cent in 1950).2 Unlike mega-cities,
A growing population puts more pressure on the environment.
towns and smaller cities have fewer resources to respond to the
Although foods that are fresh and locally-grown in a sustainable
magnitude of the change.
way will clearly have the smallest carbon footprint, alternative
Access to fresh food will become a challenge. This places methods for delivering food to consumers will continue to be
greater emphasis on reliable packaging, storage and distribution important.
systems. Food safety, nutritional value and environmental impact
Frozen food and canned food are the two most common delivery
will become even more important than they are today.
formats. The unique attributes of steel give cans significant
Consumers in developed countries have come to expect a environmental advantages.
continuous supply of diverse foods. A complex modern global
In a 2007 study by the Institute for Environmental Research and
food system allows us to live and shop for groceries far away
Education, the environmental impacts from canning and freezing
from where the food was produced and processed.
green beans were compared using life cycle assessment (LCA).4
The movement of products from field to market requires The scope of the study covered the preservation of green beans
significant processing and packaging to preserve food. Also, it from the time they are delivered to the packaging plant until they
takes time to deliver food to the dinner table. About one third of arrive at the wholesale customer.
perishable food products are lost, or go to waste, after they are
The analysis determined that for a wide range of indicators,
harvested.3
canned green beans have equal or lower environmental impacts
Time is a major factor for fresh or frozen food because energy is than the frozen beans (Table 1).
needed to extend or preserve the life and nutritional value of the
Using these results, it can be estimated that each additional
food until it can be eaten. The time factor is less important in the
tonne of steel that goes into food cans, displacing a frozen
case of canned food, because the nutritional benefits are locked
product, saves 6.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
inside the package.
If it is assumed that GHG savings associated with green beans
Time is also an important factor when considering the variety of
are representative for the majority of canned food products, it is
food that is available to consumers. Most fruits and vegetables
also possible to calculate total savings from the use of canned
are seasonal. However, canned fruits and vegetables offer
food cans.
consumers the variety they want all year round.

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 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
Ozone depletion 1.3
Ecotoxicity 28 Canning operation in the US
Smog 32
The steel can is the worlds most recycled container. For
Criteria air average 59 example, in the US, the overall recycling rate in 2013 for steel
Total water use 0.3 cans was 70.6%6, significantly higher than aluminium cans
Fossil fuel depletion 75 (56.7%)6, glass containers (34.0%)6, plastic bottles (31.3% )6 and
paper (65.4%, 2014 data)7.
These figures compare well with a study on canned food by Scientific
Certification Systems5 commissioned by the Steel Recycling Institute. It Globally, more than 7.2 million tonnes of steel packaging was
also showed that canning uses less energy than freezing. recycled in 2007 (latest data available). According to worldsteel
LCA data, this saved 11 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents which
The impact of recycling would have come from new steel production. This saving is
equivalent to taking approximately 280,000 cars off the road.
One of the most important attributes of steel is that it is infinitely
Each can recycled saves about twice its weight of CO2.
recyclable without loss of key properties such as strength, ductility or
formability. Steels magnetic properties make it the easiest packaging This recycling effort resulted in the equivalent savings over 26
material to pull out of the waste stream for recycling. billion kW hours of electricity, or the electricity needs of 2.5
million households for a year.
Average packaging recycling rates

Country/Region Recycling rate %

Did you know?
European Union (source: Apeal; 2013 data) 75
Japan (source: Japan Steel Can Recycling 93 Studies show that canned tomatoes contain as much
Association; 2013 data) or more vitamin C than fresh tomatoes.
South Africa (source: Collect a Can, 2014 data) 72 It is safe to heat food in shallow and wide-open steel
South Korea (source: Korea Metal Can Recycling 80 cans in a microwave oven.
Association, 2011 data)
Cans are made from tinplated steel sheet. The thin
US (source: Steel Recycling Institute, 2013 data) 70 layer of tin prevents corrosion of the can.

Steelmakers are producing ever thinner materials.

The thinner the material, the more cans can be
produced per tonne of tinplate. This contributes to
resource efficiency and reduces the amount of CO2
being emitted over the cans life cycle.8

Last updated: September 2015

Footnotes
1. World Population Prospects, The 2015 Revision, United Nations, Medium-variant projection, p. 2, July 2015 (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/
Publications/Files/Key_Findings_WPP_2015.pdf).
2. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, United Nations, 2014 (http://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/Highlights/WUP2014-Highlights.pdf).
3. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, FAO, 2011 (http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/).
4. Canning Green Beans, Ecoprofile of Truitt Brothers Process , Institute for Environmental Research and Education, 2007.
5. http://www.apeal.org/eco-efficiency/, accessed 23 September 2013
6. Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: 2013 Fact Sheet, p. 5, June 2015, US Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.epa.gov/
solidwaste/nonhaz/municipal/pubs/2013_advncng_smm_fs.pdf).
7. American Forest and Paper Association, accessed online at http://www.afandpa.org/our-products/paper-based-packaging on 17 July 2015.
8. Steel in the Circular Economy: A life cycle perspective, worldsteel, 2015; Baosteel steel packaging case study, p.7 (http://www.worldsteel.
org/steel-by-topic/life-cycle-assessment.html).

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