Some Facts About Aluminum

The United States is the only country to call it aluminum. The root 'alum' comes from a white powder (often aluminum oxide) that has been used throughout history as a mordant for dyes, in the tanning of leather, as an additive in adhesives and make-up. It wasn't until 1787 that scientists knew alum was the oxide of a metal. In 1807, Sir Humphrey Davy proposed that the metal be called aluminum. Soon after, it was altered to 'aluminium' because most elements end in "ium." In 1925, the American Chemical Society officially reverted the calling it aluminum, so that's what we call it here.

Mainly, it comes from bauxite ore, named after the French village of Les Bauxs. Bauxite ore is any ore or mixture of minerals rich in aluminum oxide. It can be found all over the world. It took some time to figure out how to extract pure aluminum from the ore, but in 1866, two inventors, Charles Martin Hall of the United States and Paul L. T. Héroult of France patented a process known as the Hall-Héroult process, which is still used today. This is a very energy-intensive process, especially since the ore is first hauled from remote regions, and because 1 ton of the ore yields 1/4 ton of the pure metal.

Recycling aluminum uses 20 times less energy (statistics I have seen vary, but it's a lot) than manufacturing it from raw materials, but only about half of the approximately 200 million aluminum products used each day get recycled. Next time you have an aluminum can or aluminum wrap that you want to dispose of, but you can't find a recycling bin, please consider carrying it until you find one. Most jurisdictions accept the foil wrap, too. Your town or city probably makes a profit from selling aluminum to recyclers that funds other recycling programs. Aluminum can be recycled again and again without changing its properties. If you throw it out, then its value is gone forever and more land will have to be mined to replace it.

Another fact about aluminum: the reason the foil is often called 'tin foil' is because a similar product was made from tin until 1910 (it's funny how long our collective memory has retained that).

If you want to buy recycled aluminum foil, you can get it from Greenfeet.

Sources:
Wikepedia
History of Aluminum
Aluminum: History
About: Inventors
Energy Kid's Page
Paper or Plastic, by Daniel Imhoff