Packaging

Super Bowl venue trades plastic cups and bottles for aluminum

aluminum cups at the Super Bowl — During the Super Bowl, 50,000 20-oz. aluminum cups were available. The stadium will keep offering them for Miami Dolphins games and all other events.

*Photos courtesy of Matthew Noel via Ball Corp., Centerplate*

Aquafina water in aluminum can — Serving AQUAFINA water cans at the game is part of PepsiCo’s effort to cut 35% of virgin plastic content in its beverage business by 2025.

Announcements of drinks in aluminum containers seem to be picking up, and two that stood out recently were for some of the beer and water served at the Super Bowl.

At Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Bud Light came in “infinitely” recyclable aluminum cups from Ball Corp., in partnership with Centerplate, the venue’s catering service.

Ball says is designed the lightweight cups because of consumer’s sustainable product demands. The cups will help eliminate more than 500,000 plastic cups annually from the stadium’s supply chain, the announcement says.

“Infinitely recyclable and economically valuable, aluminum is the most sustainable beverage packaging material, and like aluminum cans, aluminum cups can be easily recycled,” the announcement says, noting that 75% of aluminum ever produced is still in use today.

PepsiCo and Centerplate, part of Sodexo, also offered more than 100,000 aluminum cans of AQUAFINA water for fans. The effort is part of the venue’s mission to phase out about 99% of single-use plastics this year.

For more information, visit www.ball.com, www.centerplate.com

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Rose Shilling is a previous managing editor of Food Engineering Magazine. She wrote feature stories on a variety of topics and tracked the food packaging industry. A journalist with an editing background at news services and newspapers, she also has driven editorial projects in health care and higher education.