Welcome back, you page savers and bookmark bandits. Last week we asked the question: What is a bookmark without a book? Did you make one from a cereal box top, invent an over-engineered page-holding machine, or discover that every receipt in your house prefers to be placed in a summer beach read instead of your tax return file folder? However you marked your place, I hope it helped you return to something worth finishing.
This week, we move from holding our place to holding our beverages. Our creative nudge is an aluminum can.
Or, if you are reading this outside of North America, the aluminium can. I admit I enjoy that extra “i” tucked into the British spelling. It feels fancy, like the word accessorized to impress at the party.
As someone who spends plenty of time scouring the outdoors for found objects to make art, I come across aluminum cans regularly. Roadsides, desert trails, parking lots—cans are everywhere. They are among the most common objects (chip bags is still far and away #1) littered by people. I don’t find them interesting as raw material.
A brand-new can is nothing special. But give that can a few months in the sun…
Let our semi-arid desert climate fade the colorful print, add a few dents, let a spider or three move in. Then I start paying attention. They are really only interesting once they’ve aged, shown some wear and tear. I hope the same can be said for me.
Three years ago, I made a series of photographs of aluminum cans embedded in the root systems of creosote bushes across the Mojave Desert. They look like strange little caches hidden by a deranged kangaroo rat. Sand blows; temps soar. The cans lose its commercial facade, gaining a more interesting expression.
The creosote bush has figured out survival across centuries. The aluminum can has figured out branding, portability, and being thrown from a truck window. Together they make a complicated little still life about endurance, carelessness, and time.
Aluminum became a favorite material for beverage cans because it does a lot of things well. It is lightweight, easy to stack, quick to chill, and endlessly recyclable when we do our part.
Will we ever run out of aluminum for cans? Probably not in the simple “last can on Earth” sense. Aluminum is one of the most abundant metals in Earth’s crust. But abundance does not make it effortless. Mining, refining, manufacturing, and recycling all require energy, infrastructure, and labor.
In California, aluminum cans have a redemption value. It’s a fiscal magic trick of public policy. One moment the can is worthless waste. The next moment, a revenue stream! Not much of one, perhaps, unless you have bags and bags of them, but still. I appreciate a system that looks at trash and says, “Hold on, there may be value here yet.” That feels like a pretty good creative principle too.
Before you recycle your next aluminum can, consider giving it one extra “r”: reuse. Rinse it out, watch the sharp edges, and let it spend a few minutes as something that may not end up flattened on a highway. Then pop the tab on one or more of these canny creative nudges:
Canterbury Chimes: Gather a few empty cans and turn them into a windchime. Leave them whole, cut them carefully into strips, or punch small holes and string them together with fishing line, twine, or old shoelaces. Add beads, washers or whatever else makes a pleasing clink. Hang them where a breeze can find them.
Tower of Canfidence: See how tall a tower or pyramid you can build using empty cans. Work alone, recruit co-workers, or make it a neighborhood engineering challenge. Photograph the structure before gravity and wind push it over. Then photograph it after it falls. The collapse is part of the work, especially if you pretend you meant to do that.
Kick The Can: Invent a game using cans as targets, obstacles, or bowling pins. Give it rules, a name, and an unfair scoring system. Congratulations, you are now a game designer.
Crunch Track: Crush a few cans and pay close attention to the sound. Try a macho hand crush, or stomp it flat, or an elbow drop (not recommended). Record the noises and arrange them into a tiny soundscape. Add footsteps on gravel or a recycling bin lid slamming shut. You are now an audiophile of aluminum.
Second Serve: Repurpose a can before recycling it. Make a pencil cup, a tiny planter, a scoop, a bug hotel, or a vessel for collecting more small things that do not yet have a home. The goal is not to avoid recycling. The goal is to let reuse have a creative cameo before the can continues its material journey.
The aluminum can is easy to overlook because it is so familiar. We buy it, drink it, and toss it with little ceremony. But like so many ordinary objects, it contains a larger story once we slow down enough to notice.
Modern technological life depends on raw, natural materials. Aluminum cans do not appear from nowhere, even if they seem to multiply overnight along roadsides. Every convenience has a supply chain. Every object has a before and after.
This column was written with help from ChatGPT, which does not drink from aluminum cans but remains fully committed to recycling old ideas into slightly shinier ones.
