Ball reduces weight of beverage cans

Beverage can manufacturer Ball Packaging Europe has reduced the weight of its 330ml aluminium cans to just under 9.5 grams.

The lightweighting of its cans could lead to potential annual savings of up to 6,000 metric tons of aluminium.

The walls of the new ultra-light can are only 0.09mm thick, thinner than a human hair.

After ongoing research and development, the can maker succeeded in reducing the weight of its cans and has described the achievement as a “quantum leap in lightweighting.”

According to the company, the seemingly minor drop in weight will have major effects. Assuming that Ball switches the production for all of its third-of-a-litre cans to the new ultra-light variant, it can save roughly 6,000 metric tons of aluminium each year – that’s the weight of more than 30 jumbo jets. The benefit for the environment: Lower weight and less material improve the can’s carbon footprint.

Ball has gone to great efforts to cut down its material consumption. Seventy experts working at the company’s Technical Centre Bonn for research and development, regularly push what is technically possible. As a result of their efforts the walls of the new ultra-light can are only 0.09 mm thick, thinner than a human hair. Ball’s goal was for neither beverage manufacturers nor consumers to notice any change in handling compared to a customary can. The new “mini-kegs” needed to continue to be stable and easy to stack. Just like its predecessors, the ultra-light version can withstand internal pressures of up to 6.2 bar – the same pressure found in a full-size truck tire.

The can’s outward appearance will remain largely unchanged. “A series of tests have demonstrated that the new, lighter cans can be filled just as easily with our customers’ current filling lines,” reports Benoit Hirszowski, marketing director at Ball Packaging Europe. “Our top priority was to ensure that using less material didn’t affect the quality of the packaging. And the new generation of lighter cans still optimally protects beverages from the effects of light and oxygen, and keep them fizzy and fresh.”

The new ultra-light can is compatible with Ball’s CDL+ end.

“Customers’ responses to our new lightweight design have been excellent,” adds Hirszowski. “After an exciting development phase and a battery of tests, the only open question is where the new version will be produced first. The next step will then be the concrete implementation of a lighter-weight 50cl aluminium can.”