As aluminum grows more expensive, the need to recycle
aluminum will become more important. One social change wil be to place a greater
premium on recycling, as more money can be earned for collecting aluminum cans, the more
incentive there will be for people to separate out their aluminum cans from regular
garbage. As recycling becomes a more conscious part of social fabric (like the deposits
that used to be collected for returning glass bottles when in the past they were the
dominant container)-people will be less cavalier about the difference between recycling
bins and trash bins. When raw materials were cheap, a lax attitude toward recycling grew
in the U.S., as incomes fall and raw material costs increase, economic necessity will
bring about social change.
Necessity is also the mother of
invention. Technological change will be given an incentive as costs rise. This could
lead to the use of alternative materials for packaging of beverages. Plastics are
already regularly used, but as they are petroleum based, the need for recyling these
will also become more and more important. Also altering the shape of the can to
conserve resources is already occuring.
No comments:
Post a Comment