Green Daily

(Photo by Abqtrucker, Flick)

Popping the top off of a cold longneck may be part of the quintessential American experience (it certainly is a part of mine), but is it in line with your efforts to go green? Like it or not, some of your favorite glass-bottle beverages -- from beer, to Coca-Cola, to (gasp!) wine -- will soon be living in one of those weird-looking aluminum bottles as they await their fateful date with your gullet.

Another advantage that comes with aluminum -- aside from its energy-intensive extraction process -- is that it's recycled at a much higher rate than glass. Nearly 45% of aluminum cans are recycled versus only about 25% for glass bottles. On top of that, aluminum cans generally contain more recycled materials, since about 2/3 of all aluminum ever produced is still in use.

I guess I should take this opportunity to point out that the greenest way to go is almost always local. A bottled beverage that doesn't have to travel vast distances to quench your thirst is going to have a much smaller footprint than an import -- no matter what kind of container it's in. Even greener still is anything produced locally that flows from a tap.

Still, when it comes from distant state or nation, the aluminum bottle is preferable to glass. My advice: don't fear the metal. I was recently at a ginormous water park -- at which they had the good sense to both serve alcohol and avoid glass containers -- where I had the chance to give one of these cold ones a test drive.

I'll say this, it wasn't too much like drinking from a can, but it wasn't quite like the glass bottle experience either. It was something new. I was impressed by the construction of the aluminum bottle and, most importantly, it was cold. I dare say that it was colder than many of the glass bottled beers I've enjoyed.