The December issue of Decanter includes my letter to the editor. Well, not exactly, it includes the editor’s ‘edit’ of my letter. I am copying it in full below.
Aluminium aware
In the recent Decanter article on wine packaging was a table highlighting the pros and cons of different packaging formats, but no reference was made to their potential health impacts. More than half of the options listed use aluminium-based packaging. For good reason, since aluminium is required to reduce the ingress of oxygen.
The downside is that all aluminium-based packaging contaminates the product. It is irrefutable that regular drinking of contaminated wine will add to the body burden of aluminium. Your readership deserves to know.
Dr Chris Exley FRSB
I think you will agree that this is not exactly the letter I originally submitted.
The editor added a comment below my edited letter. I have copied his comment below.
There doesn’t seem to be a definitive study of the effects of aluminium on human health, but its an interesting point. Would anyone in the packaging industry like to comment?
This comment by the editor is not just pure ignorance. It is purposeful and designed to mislead and blur the edges of any pertinent content remaining in my heavily edited letter. Classic aluminium industry stuff. Anyone still wondering about the editorial integrity of Decanter need look no further than the magazine’s latest ‘Decanter Loves’ endorsement….Brad Pitt’s wine infused skincare range, ‘Le Domaine Skincare’. I rest my case.
However, more concerning is a recent open letter signed by many of wine’s great and good endorsing alternative packaging for wine based upon climate considerations. It saddens me when wine greats such as Hugh Johnson OBE display their ignorance of science in favour of a blatantly political message. Their suggestion that aluminium-based packaging is a climate-friendly alternative to glass shows a complete lack of understanding of the industry of aluminium. Leaving health to one side for the moment one does not have to look very far to find examples of how the extraction of aluminium ores has resulted in environmental devastation. Bert Ehgartner’s film, The Age of Aluminium, is a good place to start. Perhaps more pertinent to the arguments put forward by these wine illuminati is their ignorance that aluminium production uses almost 4% of global electricity and contributes over 1% of global carbon dioxide. These are stunning figures made even worse when one considers that less than half of the aluminium produced actually ends up in an end product. Huge waste that cannot be compensated for by recycling since less than 10% of the Earth’s burden of processed aluminium is actually recycled. The Aluminium Age has been an enormous benefit to humankind. However, it is at a huge cost both to the environment and to our health. Catastrophic examples of the energy that is stored in aluminium metal include the destruction of the two towers in 2001 and more recently Grenfell in the United Kingdom.
The irony of the great and the good choosing to ignore the science that places the aluminium industry as ‘top trump’ in a league of the globe’s worst polluters is, of course, the tyranny of Alzheimer's disease. The mistakes being conveniently forgotten by those responsible for making them.
How is it possible for anyone to believe that the processing of aluminum is more earth friendly then the processing of glass? Have these people learned anything about heavy metal contamination around the world? Just look at India, this poor country that enslaves the very young to work in these horrible factories producing all sorts of aluminum products including their beloved aluminum wine bottles. Look at what it is doing to their health. Those poor children don’t have a chance. I am finding that it is near impossible to avoid all aluminum, I am trying so very hard to find products that don’t come lined in foil packages. It seems insurmountable. I don’t eat much packaged foods, and I do cook regularly, but even things like vegetable broth, or a bit of dark chocolate all come packaged in foil! It is so frustrating. I drink mineral water daily, and have been searching for a reasonable priced mineral water that comes in a glass bottle, but what I have found is that even these bottles come with an aluminum cap!! I hate the idea of buying water in plastic, plastic contaminates the water too, and we know how the world is polluted by plastic. It really is a conundrum.
I recall learning in school...a long time ago...that producing aluminum from bauxite was quite a process. But until today, I hadn't really heard more on that. Thank you for the reminder!