Can do: steel contends with competition from plastic to hold on to its share of packaging markets.

For decades, steel food packaging--particularly tin plated cans--enjoyed the practically unchallenged top spot in the market, sharing only a small portion with glass jars and bottles. But in recent years, increasingly affordable plastics have been moving in to packaging arenas formerly occupied exclusively by steel.

But while some anticipated plastic would overrun the market, steel has remained a staple by relying on its tradition of strength and high recycling rates.

CANNED GOODS. Steel cans have a 200-year history: Today between 25 and 30 billion steel cans are produced every year, according to Bill Heenan, president of the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), Pittsburgh. Steel cans remain one of most recyclable commodities in the United States, reaching a 60 percent recycling rate in 2003, according to figures compiled by the Can Manufacturer's Institute (CMI).

Heenan admits that steel's magnetic properties give cans an advantage when it comes to recycling. "We have a much easier road because of the magnet," he says.

The high steel recycling rate--which jumped 2 percent between 2002 and 2003--is one of the strongest arguments used by steel packaging advocates when talking up their material over competitors like glass and plastic.

According to data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), recycled cans contain up to 30 percent recycled steel, some of which is collected from more than 18,000 curbside, drop-off and buy-back programs across the United States.

Steel cans have been traditionally dominant in much of the food packaging market--particularly canned fruits, vegetables and soups. However, according to MSI's Market Development Progress Report for 2004-2005, the canned food market has experienced some decline throughout the past 25 years in light of increasing competition from other materials.

"There are so many new packages," Heenan says. "The problem has been everybody wants to try something new.

However, according to Heenan and the AISI report, the canned food industry has stabilized thanks to the recent efforts of pro-can associations like the Canned Food Alliance (CFA), which was formed by AISI's Steel Packaging Council to drum up support among consumers for steel packaging.

In addition to being easy to recycle, the long shelf life and practically tamper-proof quality of steel cans are among the advantages mentioned by Gerri Walsh, manager of recycling at can manufacturer and CFA member Ball Corp., Broomfield, Colo.

Those characteristics are what keep steel cans a staple in the food packaging market, even in the face of new packaging options, Heenan says. "[Consumers] always seem to come back to the staple," he says.

Competition isn't as fierce between steel and plastic in food packaging, with steel cornering the market on fruits, vegetables and meat, while plastic is relegated primarily to condiments. "Plastic is just beginning to make inroads into most food packaging," Walsh says.

Steel may have a pretty solid grip on the food packaging industry, but can manufacturers are not above making some changes to keep it that way, according to the AISI.

For instance, the weight of steel cans has fallen dramatically during the past 25 years, says Heenan, emulating the light weight often touted as one of the chief advantages of its competition.

"Because plastic is so lightweight, when products are shipped in plastic containers, it is mainly the weight of the products that is being shipped and not heavy packaging," says Judith Dunbar of the American Plastics Council (APC), Arlington, Va. "One of the main benefits of this is that transportation costs and fuel consumption (and resulting emissions) are reduced."

According to AISI, tinplate thickness has been reduced by 30 percent throughout the last 25 years, from 0.22 mm to 0.14 mm.

Other advantages the plastic containers breaking into the food packaging market can offer tap into the growing popularity of portable convenience foods. In order to attract that segment of consumers, steel can manufacturers are expanding markets for easy-open, ring-pull cans and shaped cans, according to the CMI.

Ring-pull, pop-top cans currently serve about one-third of the market, according to the CMI, and that percentage is expected to grow to two-thirds by 2008.

THE PAINT PROBLEM, While steel has retained a firm hold in food packaging, even its strongest advocates admit an erosion of market share in another area--paint containers. Once dominated by steel cans, many major paint companies are introducing plastic containers to complement or replace lines of steel cans.

"We have lost a share of that market to plastic," Heenan says, citing the lower production cost of the blow molded plastic paint containers as the main driving force behind companies choosing to switch over.

The Sherwin-Williams Co., Cleveland, has introduced a plastic package called the Twist-n-Pour container, which it uses for its Color-to-Go line of paints, according to the company's Web site.

Heenan says some paint companies are introducing plastic containers to appeal to private homeowners with easier-to-use features like easy-open twist-off caps, pour spouts and handles instead of the more traditional steel can lids.

It's difficult to predict the effect a switch to plastic paint containers could have on recycling, according to Heenan, since only about 30 percent to 40 percent of these steel cans get recycled. Many steel paint cans end up staying in storage or garages with amounts of paint still in them, Heenan says.

But even the plastic paint containers retain some element of steel--usually a steel ring to hold the top.

Heenan says the bi-material nature of plastic paint containers would throw more kinks into recycling on the plastic side where recyclers would have to be more meticulous about removing the steel ring from the container body.

"It's contamination to them," he says. "They'd have to go through a lot of work to remove that ring."

Steel and plastic bring individual strengths to the container markets they compete in. Plastics, as a packaging material, have their own set of virtures that are attractive so some manufacturers.

They are strong, lightweight and shatterproof and they can be clear and easily molded into different shapes, says the APC's Dunbar.

But steel's rigidity also plays in to its key advantage as a packaging material--strength, says Heenan.

In spite of some stiff competition from plastic, especially in the paint container market, steel has managed to hold on to much of its market share, according to Heenan.

"When you're at the top of the hill, you don't gain ground as much as fight off competition," he says.

RELATED ARTICLE: Energy in a can.

A study released by the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI) says that canned foods offer a more energy efficient delivery system than either refrigerated or frozen foods.

The study, performed by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) of Oakland, Calif., assessed the energy consumption of refrigerated, frozen and canned food delivery systems quantifying the energy requirements at every stage depending on the form of packaging.

"As more and more companies become aware of the tremendous impact CO2 has relative to global warming, and just as importantly, are awakening to an additional impact from refrigeration--a chemical refrigerant called HFCs or hydrofluorcarbons--companies, environmentalists and consumers are questioning the methods of delivering food to consumers," says Bill Heenan, president of the SRI.

According to the study, which examines the relative use of energy within the entire food production system, the production and delivery of frozen foods consumes at least 50 percent more energy than that of canned. The study also claims that the process for refrigerated foods uses between 1 and 5 percent more energy that that of canned.

The food industry, which provides the most basic fuel of all from a human point of view, uses a supply chain that consumes energy at every step of moving agricultural produce from the field to the table. The SOS study analyzed the relative use of energy in each stage, from growing/harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, storing for wholesale and retail distribution, as well as home storage.

The study's assessment considers energy expenditures for the energy consumed in the movement of produce from farmland to table for the three primary modes of deliver: refrigerated, canned and frozen. However, the energy used to build the processing distribution facilities, stores, homes or the trucks or cars used to transport the goods is not included.

More information is available at the American Iron and Steel Institute's Web site: www.steel.org.

The author is assistant editor of Recycling Today and can be reached at [e-mail].