“Grab me a cold one.”

We often say as we walk into a bar or a kitchen. And, there is no doubt that ice-cold beer is the best quencher in any occasion. Speaking of cold beer, when we think about drinks in various types of containers, the beverages in cans seem to chill faster and deliver a fresher taste. Especially, steel cans are durable and convenient yet prevalent in everyday living. What makes steel packaging so great? Even a superhero, Man of Steel, is named after this material. Let’s discover more about it from now.

Advantages of Steel Packaging

• Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. From eco-bags to reusable batteries, consumers and brand owners are becoming increasingly aware of issues such as recycling rates. Among the plethora of sustainable materials, steel embodies a special meaning since it is 100% recyclable. Moreover, steel packaging for food can be endlessly recycled without losing any of its quality. Especially due to its magnetic properties, steel can be sorted out easily by a magnetic classifier. This advantage contributes to its easy and low-cost recycling process, encouraging more reuses of steel. In fact, more than 50% of global steel production is generated from steel scrap.
  Canned products don’t require the energy of refrigeration during storage. In addition, as steel packaging technology advances, the steel packaging is getting stronger and lighter while requiring less material in production process. The lighter weight of the packaging allows more product to be shipped using less fuel – meaning less money and better environment. Steel packaging’s unlimited reusability and adaptability are worth to compare with the Man of Steel, the human race’s eternal superhero.

• Designer’s Paradise When you walk in to a giant grocery store or a convenient store anywhere in city areas, a vibrant collection of diverse soda cans is a hard thing to miss. The flexile and easily applicable quality of steel allows steel cans to adopt millions of trendy and interesting designs, which appeal strongly to the consumers. Steel cans can be applied with tactile finishes of distinctive quality, leading designers and brand owners to benefit from the material’s outstanding characteristics. From embossing, matte finishes, leather-like coatings and lacquering, the array of innovative decorations is not bound to a limit. Splendid colors of steel packaging surely let the beverage cans to stand out on a crowded shelf at the store.
  Some of the large global companies are collaborating with designers or brands to create an extraordinary steel packaging that bestows a premium value and a unique aesthetic quality. Moreover, despite the economical impression of tins, many manufacturers are using steel packaging for high-end cosmetic products or luxurious candles as an innovative means of powerful consumer appeal.

• Safety First
  In every scene of summer vacation at the beach or by the pool, the existence of soda cans and food cans doesn’t seem so surprising. It is almost natural to hold a drink can at sporting events and concerts whereas beer bottles or any other glass container are often prohibited due to safety reasons. Cans, especially steel cans, are safe because they don’t shatter.Steel can’s durability is only one of many safety benefits of the material. Canned fruits and vegetables are sealed in steel cans within a short time after harvesting. And during the canning process, micro-organisms that could affect the food quality are eliminated by heating the sealed steel container. After all these packing procedures, the food inside stays its freshness for a long period as its steel packaging provides perfect protection against oxygen, light, moisture and other contaminants.

More about Steel Cans, Steel Packaging Council
Among millions of councils in the world, there is a special council for steel packaging as well. The steel packaging promotes steel as a choice of material for a variety of products by expanding the viability of steel packaged products with consumers and brand owners. According to the information from the Canned Food Alliance (CFA), the Steel Packaging Council is a founding member of the CFA. As the alliance consists of steel makers, food processors and affiliate members of the industry, the Steel Packaging Council fosters steel-based solutions to develop existing markets to a great extent. American Iron and Steel Institute specifies that investors of the council are USS-POSCO Industries, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, ArcelorMittal USA LLC, United States Steel Corporation, Severstal North America and more. These investor companies provide materials that are used to make steel food cans that embellish our daily lifestyles. In this respect, POSCO is currently producing and supplying black plate which is a prior material of tin plate, the key material of steel can production.

While providing such safety and convenience to people around the world, steel packaging are preserving resources for future generation to live in a better world. This amazing qualities that contribute to the human race, certainly seem similar to the Man of Steel who is all about the world peace without asking anything in return. With excellent recycling abilities, unique design qualities and the consumer-friendly features, it seems that steel packaging has the potential to surpass the value that Superman offers.

Check out the cool infographics below for more interesting stories!

• http://steelcan.com/
• http://www.smartcansolutions.com/pdfs/Steel_Food_Can_Facts.pdf

Iron: Inexpensive Yet Strong, ‘Economically Feasible’ Material 

Steel is one of the most abundant resources. As a result, the cost of steel is indeed very cheap. It only costs approximately 1/3 of its closest alternative, Aluminum, which costs roughly 1700-2000 USD per ton. Furthermore, steel’s price compared to its strength property is significantly lower at 4.4 when compared to other materials such as aluminum alloy at 21.2 and plastic at 11.3. This indicates that steel is cheap despite the material’s outstanding strength. Although directly comparing the costs of steel products to those of similar products made of other materials is meaningless since different materials involve different production process, but it is clear that steel products are cheap yet strong and that steel is relatively more economically feasible when compared to other materials. 

‘From a Needle to a Vessel’, Well-rounded Material with Properties of Handy Procedure, Corrosion-resistance and Durability 

As implied in the phrase ‘From a needle to a vessel’, steel is extensively used in diverse fields. Not to mention the cheap cost of the material, Steel’s mechanical properties, corrosion resistance and machinability allow its flexible application to various industry fields. It comes as no surprise that steel is universally considered as the most important material in engineering and construction industry.

Plastic is often perceived and used as an alternative material to steel for the characteristics alike; plastic has the merit of being easy to process, mechanically durable, pressure-resistant, and heat-resistant due to high softening temperature, pressure and electro-thermal. Despite all the positive aspects, plastic is still considered inferior than steel in terms of the material’s mechanical and chemical properties.

Through Recycling Process, ‘Iron’ is Eco-friendly 

When estimating a certain material’s level of eco-friendliness, recycle availability becomes the standard. In the case of plastic, only 3 ~ 5% of the overall production is recycled. However, due to its simple recycling process, iron stays eco-friendly through high usage of the process.

By reusing the recycled iron, it is possible  to decrease 82% of Carbon Dioxide, 88.9% of nitrogen oxides, and 94.7% of sulfur oxides, compared to directly producing iron from minerals. Therefore, iron scraps are considered as one of the top three ingredients of steel along with iron ore and coke.

Even the production process of iron has less negative effects on nature, compared to the processes of other mineral resources. In order to mine mineral resources, trees and forests need to be cut down to make a tunnel in the area. Prior to the mining, a series of content analyses of an iron ore is held to assess economic feasibility of the site. For gold, 3 grams of gold per 1 ton of raw ore is considered economically feasible. This ‘feasible content’ for Aluminum is 13%, iron 5%, copper 0.8% yet the steel is at astonishing 60%. This means that steel is an ‘eco-friendly’ material in that the mining process does not involve extensive environmental destructions and leaves minimal wastes compared to other natural resources. In other words, more use of steel over other materials helps to save the environment. Environmental destruction due to mining process is inevitable yet the negative impacts could be minimized with more use of steel.

Various Usages in Our Daily Lives

Other than the excellent qualities introduced above, there are many more usages in our daily lives. Human body contains certain amount of iron and it is used in manufacturing products from food container to artificial bone structure. Also, sometimes iron is used in producing another type of metal with improved qualities, such as stainless steel. Known for its non-rusting and robust property, the stainless steel is an alloy of regular steel with reasonable amount of carbon, nickel and chrome. As shown, depending on the type of materials added to the steel, various steel products with many different qualities can be made. Since they alloy of iron or oxides tend to be magnetic, it is widely used in producing computer diskettes, recording tapes, skippers, calling cards and more. We could expect for an enhanced quality of life by further developing the outstanding properties of iron and utilizing them into new products in the future!

[box]

Case Study – Steel House

POSCO has built a steel house ‘Youth Shelter’ to support teenage runaways who are not capable of living an ordinary life due to domestic conflicts or violence. In addition, a senior welfare center called ‘Happy Steel House’ was constituted with the fund raised by POSCO family employees’ 1% share campaign. Including the ‘Happy Steel House’, POSCO’s Steel House construction is now being applied in various social contributions in Korea.

[/box]