Think of it as a big, flying beer can

We often get questions about recycling things besides beverage cans. Can you recycle, for example, a 747?

The answer is, mais oui, mon ami. In Chateauroux, France, at a recycling center near the town's airport, they have a machine that can bite a jumbo jet in half. Then it chomps the big pieces into smaller pieces, until other machines can sort through the pile of scrap and separate the aluminum, titanium, copper and other reusable stuff from the plastic tray tables, airsick bags, carpet and wrinkled magazines. Think of the battle scene aftermath in Transformers.

Two thirds of the reusable stuff from this process is aluminum. It turns back into (drum roll) ... aluminum ingots, which in turn may become bicycles, lawn chairs, and maybe even airplane parts. Voila!

You can read the whole story here.

Since a lot (OK, most) of the aluminum in these beasts comes from Alcoa, it's good to know that it's getting the right treatment when it can no longer fly. We (and the world) need it.

The Next Best Thing

It's said that pop artist Andy Warhol never threw anything away. In fact, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has a whole warehouse full of cardboard boxes of random stuff that Andy collected then put away -- the theory being that if you keep something long enough, it turns into art.

Now we're from Pittsburgh, Andy's home town, and we can tell you something about Andy: his family was (and still is) in the recycling business. Truth.

Now, this story IS going somewhere. It's going to Houston, actually, where another work of pop art, the Beer Can House, was rededicated last week. This spectacular landmark, the residence of the late John Milkovisch and his wife, is covered from foundation to rafters with carefully sculpted aluminum siding, cut from Our Favorite Product. John apparently had two things in common with Andy Warhol: an eye for the beauty of ordinary things, and the inability to throw any of them away.

You can see from the pictures that John used the can bodies for siding and created a shimmering wind chime curtain of the can ends. According to the Beer Can House web site, the unique siding not only gave the house a distinct look that Andy Warhol would have envied; it also protected the place from the elements and saved energy. Presumably the aluminum reflects the Houston sun and thus cut down on John's air conditioning bills.

John and his wife have both passed on, and the house had begun to fall into disrepair. A Houston folk art foundation acquired it and has just completed a full restoration, funded by contributions and donated (authentic) vintage beer cans.

Stop by and see the place if you can. From our point of view, if you're going to keep aluminum out of the recycling stream, you'd better have a darn good reason.

This would be it.

Baton Rouge bumps it up with CVP

The Curbside Value Partnership kicked off a campaign with Baton Rouge last November, and the data is now in. The first month of the campaign recognized the highest collection ever experienced. And that lift is being sustained. Three months into the campaign resulted in a 16.4% percent increase in recyclables.

The city is thrilled, including the Mayor's office. They have now exceeded their goal in switching to single stream by reaching a 51.4% increase in overall recycling tons from prior to the switch.

Out of the mouths of babes ...

Graden Gribble (pictured here with his teacher) isn’t exactly a baby. He’s a 5th grade student at Rocky Branch Elementary School in River Falls, Wisconsin, who won the state's Conservation Speaking Contest by talking about our favorite subject: recycling aluminum.

In his speech, “Recycle Aluminum…Why?” Graden outlined many reasons why we should recycle. For instance, recycling one aluminum can will save enough energy to power a 100-power light bulb for up to four hours -- or power a television set for almost three hours (be sure to do your homework first before trying this.)

Graden also talked about the need to keep our land clean. Like, rather than send your aluminum cans to the landfill…donate them to the River Falls Youth Hockey Association, so they can buy new jerseys. (smart idea, Graden!)

We thought this was a pretty cool speech. So cool, in fact that we sent Graden and his classmates 50 reusable aluminum drinking bottles and some Alcoa literature. (I’m sure they’ll use the drinking bottles … the literature may be another story.)

In 2007, Alcoa purchased and recycled nearly 1 million metric tons of aluminum, which went into a host of useful, recyclable products. (Math challenge to 5th graders: how much is that in pounds?)

Having a young aluminum ambassador like Graden on our side, we’ll sure to see those recycling figures rise.