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One Small Step to Save the Planet

  • 12th Jul 2023
  • Author: Malika Andress - Head of Marketing
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    Every day the National Space Centre teams are looking at changes we can make to help save our planet.

    Many years ago we moved over to Vegware and Planglow serving solutions in our café. Our milkshakes may look like they are served in plastic cups with domed lids, but it is actually Vegware, made from plants, which is fully compostable (we are even looking at having our own onsite composting facility to cut down on transporting our waste to the recycling site we work with, which is just 4 miles from the Centre!)

    This month we have started working with Swithland Water, who are another local company we are happy to partner with to cut down our carbon footprint, but also to support local independent suppliers.  

    Swithland have provided us with a new range of aluminium reusable water bottles, which are sold for just £2.50 in our café filled with mineralised natural spring water from deep beneath Leicestershire's Charnwood Hills, but they are resealable, reusable and recyclable!

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So, is aluminium better for the planet?

  • Aluminium can be constantly recycled with no change in properties.
  • Recycling an aluminium can save 95% of the energy used to make a new can and no new material needs to be mined or transported.
  • Nearly 75 percent of all the aluminium ever produced is still in use today.
  • Cans are lighter than glass, so cutting down on any transport costs.
  • Cans aren't made from fossil fuels like plastic.
  • The processes involved in making cans contributes less to environmental problems like acid rain and oxygen-free zones in the ocean.
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For full transparency aluminium has its own environmental impacts. Making it involves refining bauxite ore, and mining bauxite can pollute water in the countries it’s sourced, including Australia, Malaysia and India. Rivers and sediment contaminated with heavy metals threaten the health of people and wildlife near mines.

For this reason it is better to use recycled aluminium.  Aluminium can be constantly recycled with no change in properties. Recycling an aluminium can saves 95% of the energy used to make a new can and no new material needs to be mined or transported.

Reducing waste and reusing materials, where possible, should come before recycling something. By reusing bottles, we reduce the amount of single-use packaging that needs to be created, reducing waste and a whole host of global environmental problems.

Next time you visit bring your own bottle to reuse, or buy one of ours and make sure you reuse it to keep hydrated during your visit, and long afterwards.