UW-Eau Claire’s Blugold Dining halls to replace plastic bottles with 100% recyclable aluminium cans

The University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire is on a journey to introduce 100% recyclable 16-ounce aluminium cans, replacing similar-sized plastic bottles on the campus. This change will be visible from the beginning of autumn during the fall semester.

UW-Eau Claire’s Blugold Dining locations will incorporate these aluminium cans to take a step toward sustainability. Currently, aluminium cans are the most recycled items globally because their collection, sorting and remelting processes are the simplest. Once collected, the aluminium cans may have up to 90% recycling rate in comparison with glass and PET which have 67% and 66% recycling rates, respectively.

Moreover, recycling aluminium requires 90% less energy than primary aluminium production. IAI has calculated that almost 70% of the aluminium cans recycled end up as perfectly new end-user products.

Andrew Solomon, the operations manager in Blugold Dining by Sodexo, commented: “Our hope is the campus community will enjoy this offering and support the university’s sustainability initiative.”

The new 16-ounce aluminium can module will be swapped with the existing plastic bottles of the same volume. These aluminium cans will be provided as an option with student meals. Solomon referred to last economic year’s data and said the incorporation of aluminium cans would save almost 84,000 plastic bottles from ending up in landfills after this noble implementation.