Light Weight

Beverage cans today are among the lightest beverage packages and are partly even lighter than plastic bottles.

The beverage can industry has reduced the weight of the package further and further: the first beverage can 60 years ago weighed more than 80 grams. Today a 50 cl aluminium can together with the can end only weighs about 16 grams, a 50 cl can made of steel now weighs only about 30 grams – that is about 50 % less than they still weighed in 1970.

Today, beverage cans can be produced with a wall thickness of 0.097 mm – the can wall is thus as thin as a human hair.

The can end is also becoming increasingly lighter: the new generation of can ends which has been on the market in Europe since 2009 shows, as compared with standard ends, a material saving of 10%. A single gram less weight saves, with sales throughout Europe of about 50 billion pcs., about 20,000 metric tons of aluminium or about 30,000 metric tons of steel per year.

Together with the weight, the energy consumption as well as the CO₂ emissions during transport decrease – a further advantage for the environment.