“Don’t Throw Money Away”: Reynolds, Alcoa, and Aluminum Beverage Can Recycling in the United States, 1958–1990

This article uses oral histories and archival evidence from two major aluminum firms, Alcoa and Reynolds, to reevaluate the interlinked histories of the aluminum beverage can and recycling in the United States. Aluminum firms introduced cans alongside salvage programs that paid consumers for discarded cans, responding to material incentives as well as to growing environmental criticism of disposable containers. Unlike European cases of can adoption where retailers and brewers were key actors, U.S. aluminum firms were behind the aluminum can’s success in the U.S. market. Alcoa and Reynolds used the salvage value of aluminum in a two-pronged fight against rival steel can manufacturers and activists campaigning for restrictions on disposable cans and bottles. Alcoa and Reynolds turned environmentalists into customers, convincing them that aluminum’s salvage value made it the best choice for a recyclable container. Reynolds and Alcoa pursued different strategies for collecting cans, however, and they broke with each other and with allies in the Keep America Beautiful lobby group over the question of container deposits. The salvage model faltered in the 1990s when global aluminum prices slumped, and the industry’s dependence on salvage value incentives proved insufficient to “close the loop” on aluminum beverage cans.