Preserving Revolution: The Transformative Invention of Tin Cans | Full Documentary

Tin Cans: a revolutionary invention that almost everyone has at home today. It arouses nostalgic feelings and reminds us of our childhood. It is supposed to bring happiness to newly married couples and even served as a muse for the Pop Art artist Andy Warhol. Its invention heralded a revolution in the food supply. Never before could food be preserved for so long.

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[exciting music] What does Napoleon have in common with “Hawaiian Toast”? What does the atomic bomb have to do with sardines? Or underwear with ravioli? This great invention was a revolution. It basically kick-started the concept for our modern food supply. This invention prevented starvation and malnutrition. It literally saved lives.

[narrator] Just about everyone has these at home. They evoke a nostalgic sentiment and remind us of our childhood – either as comfort food or as toys. They are meant to bring good luck to newlyweds. And they are also at home in the world of art.

Simple and functional in design – sometimes classic, sometimes cool – they robustly protect their contents. They are unbeatable when it comes to shelf life to the preservation of food. [narrator] But certainly since the climate crisis, they have fallen into disrepute. Do they still have a future? Cans. [theme music]

[narrator] Year for year, billions of cans roll off production lines all over the world. Cans continue to be very popular with many grocery shoppers. And food manufacturers prize the can’s lightweight and durable material. They are so great because they are light and robust and so perfect for transportation.

[narrator] Cans are packaging and container in one. This advantage makes them very convenient on-the-road and at festivals. I certainly remember when going camping, on hikes, having premade chili in a tin was the way to go. And who has got time to actually pour that out- No, it is straight from the tin.

[narrator] From tomato sauce to burgers – cans promise a decades-long shelf life. A German pensioner opened up his garage in 2002 and found a collection of canned goods which had been sitting there for four decades and decided that he should give these to the local museum.

[narrator] Apparently, the bread was still edible according to the museum director. We take it for granted that food products now have a shelf life of not just weeks – but years. Not so long ago, however, an invention like the can was still an elusive dream. In the mid-18th century,

Famines threatened the lives of people across Europe. Long, hard winters, but also pests, caused crop failures. This problem plagued populations for many decades. And the struggle continued in storehouses. Against foraging animals such as mice and insects, but also against time – the natural enemy of perishable foods.

Most of the techniques used to preserve food had already been known for thousands of years. When we learned how to control fire, we also discovered that smoking made meat last longer. Smoking was probably the oldest method of preservation. Drying was also very popular with the Egyptians because of the hot climate.

[narrator] Drying, as a preservation method, also goes back a very long time in the northern regions. It’s how Norway’s famous stockfish is prepared. Originally a “poor man’s food” because cod was so plentiful, stockfish also became a seafarers’ staple. Babylonians and Sumerians traded in salted meats. Salting is an ancient food preservation technique

That is still in use today. Similarly, cheese-making is a technique to preserve milk. Once the milk is heated to the right temperature, rennet – a calf stomach enzyme combined with bacteria – is added. Then you have to wait and stir it again and again until you get cheese.

Depending on the cultural milieu, macerating in oil, vinegar or alcohol were also common preservation methods. When I think of preserving food, I think of pickling something, for example gherkins, or onions or eggs. [narrator] While all these techniques worked, they did so for a limited time only. And when overdone,

Some of them could even result in toxic foods. Already in ancient Greece people used sulphur to preserve wine. Sulfur reacts with oxygen and prevents the wine from oxidizing and turning into vinegar. But this was not without risk: When people started realizing that sulphurised wine could actually poison you,

Sulfurization was banned in some countries. The Roman-German Emperor Maximilian I. permitted sulfurization again – but only with strict adherence to a maximum value. Violators were punished. [narrator] The European Union currently regulates the use of about 60 food preservatives, including sulphur and sulphur dioxide. Over many centuries, preservation methods hardly changed at all.

In the 18th century, however, food products were subjected to stricter requirements: The time was ripe for a new preservation technique. A revolutionary invention that takes our domestic storage cupboards by storm. A milestone in the history of conservation technology that inspires young and old, but also four-legged friends

– and continues to do so today. In 18th century Europe, death by starvation was an omnipresent threat to the population, but also to the military – on land and at sea. During the Seven Years’ War in the 1750s, half of all the British sailors involved died of malnutrition.

At sea, it was common at the time to eat salted meat and “hardtack biscuits”, which is a kind of biscuit made from flour, water and sometimes salt – everything else was too perishable. [narrator] After the French Revolution in 1789, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were engaged in fighting each other across Europe.

Armies of this size were a new phenomenon. An age old solution to the problem of feeding the army is just to loot the lands that you are travelling through and they do that. But the scale of the army is such that it’s becoming impossible

To find enough food and so somebody has to find a solution. [narrator] “How can I get my soldiers fed?” This question also troubled the notorious General Napoleon Bonaparte: After all, his men should be able to defeat the enemy. In 1795, Napoleon looks at his army and he finds a group of men,

Who have been dessinated not in war, but through hunger. And so what Napoleon does is to launch a competition. He wants to find a new way of preserving food, and so the winner of that competition will receive 12,000 gold francs. [narrator] The war and the advertised reward ignited innovation

And inspired the imagination of numerous inventors, including the Parisian confectioner Nicolas Appert. Nicolas Appert, was also trained master chef, and took on Napoleon’s challenge. Appert set up a test workshop and started testing different methods – but he was never quite satisfied with the result. [narrator] They either didn’t please the chef’s palate

Or they literally blew up in his face. In Appert’s search for a method, he came across research results from the Italian clergyman and professor Lazzaro Spallanzani. [narrator] Some 40 years earlier, Spallanzani had already proved that the growth of microorganisms in food could be prevented by heating and airtight sealing.

One of the most famous bacteria that affect millions of people annually – sometimes with severe and fatal outcomes, is Salmonella. Symptoms are fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea. [narrator] Appert was convinced that Spallanzani had been on the right track. Heating was the solution.

He filled glass bottles with meat, fruit and vegetables, sealed them airtight with corks and heated them in a water bath. He spent years tinkering with the temperature and cooking times. The French Navy tested Appert’s invention. During long and stormy sea voyages, some of the glass preserves broke,

But the food in the containers that remained intact were edible. This was a great success for Appert and made him the official winner of Napoleon Bonaparte’s competition. [narrator] In 1810, Appert was awarded the prize money of 12.000 gold francs along with the French honorary title “benefactor of humanity”.

He had invented a food sterilization technique. But glass is quite heavy and breaks easily, which is why not only inventors but also business men kept looking out for an even better solution. [narrator] Philippe de Girard, an engineer, experimented with metal vessels – and invented the world’s first tin can.

So the history books, usually say, that the man who invented the tin can was a British business man called Peter Durand, and he was the man who in 1810 patented the tin can procedure. So he is seen as the man who invented the tin can.

But if one looks at the patent what you see is that he notes that this was an idea that was given to him by a foreigner. [narrator] De Girard had sold his idea – and with it also his rightful place in the history books as the inventor of the can.

A short time later the world’s first commercial cannery opened: Donkin’s factory on Southwark Park Road in London. Around 1813 they started producing canned food for the Royal Navy. [narrator] Among the first people to get to taste “canned veal roast” were Queen Charlotte and her husband King George III.

Both of them approved of the canned meat’s taste. I don’t think I’d want to be the first person who tries the worlds first ever stash of canned meat. To be honest, it sounds unappetizing. I would have been thrilled if I had tried the first canned meat that was produced.

It was good enough for George the third, who has canned meat in 1813, it’s good enough for me. [narrator] Nicolas Appert, the inventor of thermal sterilization, welcomed the advancements made to improve his method. He started his own cannery with the prize money from Napoleon.

One of the great events of the great exhibition in 1851 was the opening of a canned food. It had been canned 38 years before, by Nicolas Appert, who in fact died in the intervening period. So his canned food had outlived him. [narrator] Fueled by industrialization, canned food became a smash hit.

Canneries popped up like weeds throughout Europe and the US. All the branches of the armed forces were eager to benefit from this invention. It would take some time, however, before cans found their way into private households. [cheerful music] Many of us grew up with canned food as a normal part of our lives,

And we can all think of different canned classics from our childhood days. As a kid, baked beans on toast was an absolute treat and to this day still something of a comfort food. The one I remember best is Haggis. I come from a Scottish family and Haggis is a typically Scottish dish.

It is offal from sheep mixed up and served ideally in the sheep’s stomach. As a child, what I used to eat out of a tin can was corned beef. I absolutely loved corned beef sandwiches with tomatoes and even though they ended up soggy by lunchtime, they were just perfect.

[narrator] Another pantry staple of undisputed renown is canned sardines. As early as 1895, a California man named Frank E. Booth began packing sardines – preserved in oil – into cans. Thanks to inexpensive raw materials, good storability and high nutritional value, canned sardines were used as provisions for troops in numerous wars.

But in peacetime too they were a much-in-demand and inexpensive source of nutrition – all over the world. [cheerful music] The sardines used for canning increasingly came from African countries such as Morocco – and continue to do so. Moroccan sardines are considered a delicacy; they are shipped all over the world. [cheerful music]

Another world-famous canned classic – one that especially Italians can’t do without is tomatoes. I use canned tomatoes in pretty much every dish I know how to cook. First what I learned was Bolognese and canned tomatoes are essential in that. I use them to make pizza, and I use them to make pasta,

And yesterday I used them with my children to make chili con carne. So, they are everywhere and always in our kitchen. [narrator] In fact, tomatoes are one of the things that often even tastes better canned than fresh. Especially when peak season is over and only pale, hard varieties are available in grocery stores.

The canning-tomato harvest takes place here in northern Italy – in one of the largest tomato growing areas – during the summer. This region has a particularly favourable climate, with ideal conditions in terms of temperature and humidity. A few kilometres away, the humidity is already too high

And makes tomatoes more susceptible to fungal diseases. Tomato farmers here can expect to harvest up to 200.000 kilos of tomatoes a day. Modern harvesting machines make it possible. This tomato variety is specially-bred for mechanical harvesting; it is smaller, more robust and has thicker skin than other varieties.

The distance between the field and the cannery is short. Canning-tomatoes must be processed as fresh as possible. Green tomatoes are sorted out by hand. The others are subsequently processed in a fully automatic peeling machine. Post-peeling, a sorting machine removes the broken fruit. Only intact specimens make it into the can as “whole tomatoes”.

The rejected ones aren’t thrown away but end up as canned tomato sauce – or “passata”. [cheerful music] Just as a can’s content is variable, the can itself has also assumed various shapes over time. And, of course, can production technology is also continuously upgraded. Unknown to manufacturers and consumers of the time,

The early cans contained toxic substances. [cheerful piano music] The re-enacted scene shows that the production of cans used to entail demanding manual work, which made them expensive. Too expensive, in fact, or most people. [cheerful piano music] £ 8 for a can of carrots sounds steep today,

But it was horrendously expensive for people back in 1813. Just imagine, that’s about the amount of money a head housekeeper would earn per year at the time. Canned food was just way too expensive for civilians. Among the few who could afford it were – of course – the military

And, in this case, also a famous Canadian polar explorer named Sir John Franklin. [narrator] In 1845, Franklin’s vision was to sail through the Northwest Passage – heading east-to-west – for the first time. He set sail with two ships – but he never returned. Franklin’s distraught wife

Had five ships dispatched to search for him. The Franklin expedition had just about everything you might want in it to make it a sensational story. It had a sort of noble hero, had a grieving widow, and more than rumors about the existence of cannibalism.

[narrator] It wasn’t until 14 years later that the first remains were discovered. It was determined that chronic lead poisoning led to their deaths. Lead-soldered cans – typical of the time – were deemed the most likely culprit. Today, scientists assume that the cans were not the sole reason for the death of the team.

The amount of lead was just too small to be fatal. A variety of unfortunate circumstances are more likely to have caused the mission to fail. According to one theory, the two ships got stuck in the ice. Since the team did not have enough food for such a long period,

The men probably died of malnutrition and scurvy. [narrator] The theory that the explorers fell victim to lead poisoning was a PR disaster for the 19th century canning industry. Manufacturers had to upgrade the canneries and find new solutions. From 1875 onwards, seamed cans and can seaming machines rendered soldering with lead obsolete.

This x-ray image shows how cans are closed nowadays by interlocking the lid edge with the flange of the can body. [dynamic music] On-going advancements in closure technology made the production of canned food less and less expensive. By 1900, cans were finally also embraced by the masses.

In the US alone, about 700 million cans were produced that year. They are a runaway bestseller for many decades. [dynamic music] Modern day can factories can churn out around 9 million cans every day. First, square plates of sheet metal are coated on one side with white or golden paint.

The wafer-thin but highly elastic inner coating prevents possible chemical reactions between the food and the metal surface. [narrator] Then the sheet metal is cut to the dimensions of the can and bent into a cylinder. The two ends of the metal strip are welded together.

The cylinder is not yet particularly stable at this stage, which is why the next step is to fine-tune the surface structure. First, the edges at the top and bottom are pressed in a little, and then bent outwards. Then the body gets its typical grooves, which gives it stability.

[narrator] The round can bottom is put atop the cylinder and the two sheet metal sections are rolled into each other. The can is now leak-proof and ready to be filled. This step has long since been automated. These cans are being filled with a popular treat: baked beans.

All that’s missing now is the lid. As with the can base, the lid is pressed together with the can body. The can is now sealed. In the last step, just like its historical precursors, the filled can is boiled in a large kettle. And only after this final step the canned foods are preserved.

[narrator] These days, unsurprisingly, we use a can opener to open cans. But at the beginning of the tin can era, this device had not yet been invented. Napoleonic troops had to stab through their cans with a bayonet. Elsewhere soldiers used hammers and chisels – or axes.

A can opener as we know it today would not even have worked on these early cans. The material was still too thick. Early cans were made of wrought iron and were lined with tin on the inside. This meant the can walls were up to 5mm thick. Hammer and chisel were not a stopgap,

But the manufacturer’s actual recommendation on how to open it. [narrator] It took advancements in tinplate production for the can walls to gradually become thinner. Tinplate has always been made of steel. The steel slab was originally hot-rolled into thin strips. [exciting music] The resulting sheets had a thickness of several millimetres.

It took another invention – namely cold rolling – to finally get even thinner sheets. After the steel has been hot rolled, it is cold rolled. This step usually takes place at room temperature, without the steel having to be heated again. Cold rolling reduces its thickness by about 90 percent.

[narrator] Thanks to this new rolling technology, today’s tinplate is now only 0.12 to 0.24 mm thick. The advent of thinner-walled cans in the mid-19th century necessitated a new, more sophisticated can-opening method that didn’t endanger the can’s integrity. In 1858 Ezra J. Warner, an American, applied for a patent for the first can opener

– almost 50 years after the tin can was invented. Ezra J. Warner’s tin opener was a large blade that cut through and in to the can, but critically it had a device which was designed to protect the contents of the can. [narrator] Warner’s invention was mainly used

By soldiers during the American Civil War. [heroic music] It was simply too dangerous to use at home, so what people would do is buy their can or bring their can to the grocery store, get the shop keeper to use the warner device and then they would take their can home to cook it.

After Warner’s invention, ten years passed before another American patented the pioneer of today’s standard openers. The basic mechanism has remained the same until today. [narrator] William Lyman is considered the rotary cutter’s inventor. His opener was, however, still missing the gear crank. Over the course of time, new can opener variations emerged.

Sometimes their use was intuitive. Some required more, some required less muscle power. In the end, Lyman’s principle won out. So this is my can opener which is a descendant of Lyman’s invention and does very much what his did. It clips on, you turn the handle, it moves around,

Opens the tin, and it does the job very nicely indeed. Conventional can openers have a wheel to steer you around, but with this simple design you just guide the blade along in your own way. [narrator] The rotary can opener is still a standard piece of kitchen equipment today.

But since 2014, a new technology has been making inroads in the food industry: the tear-off lid makes can opening easier and more convenient than ever before. But what is found underneath these lids can be quite surprising in some cases. [calm music] The most bizarre tined product I have ever come across

Was a can of completely pressed underpants sort of that size. It makes you wonder… why? [narrator] What looks like a dishwashing tab reveals itself as a pair of underpants when water is added. A practical idea – though somewhat silly since you have to get them wet first. [gradual music]

By contrast, the canned hamburger seems almost normal. The weirdest tin can content I have ever heard of is unicorn meat, and I wouldn’t have a clue what to expect in it and apparently once you open that can what’s inside it is quite unexpected. [narrator] According to the label, canned unicorn meat

Is not only an excellent source of glitter but also contains magic in every bite. Fortunately, no real unicorns had to die for this joke item. [gradual music] One of the most successful uses of the can is for beer. The sales figures are still growing steadily today.

Canned beer has long since overtaken the bottled version. It made up 60 percent of the US beer market in 2019. But before beer could become available in cans, Americans had to endure a long “dry spell”. In 1920, alcohol was banned in the United States.

Prohibition was supposed to reduce crime but actually encouraged it – since criminal gangs took over the alcohol trade. [mysterious music] People like Al Capone in Chicago, became enormously wealthy and intensely powerful [narrator] It wasn’t until 1933 that Al Capone was sentenced to a prison term. Not for bootlegging but for tax evasion.

[mysterious music] The year that Al Capone was finally sentenced to prison, was also the year that the prohibition area ended. [narrator] Beer enthusiasts came up with an endearing term for the day the ban on alcohol was lifted: “New Beer’s Eve”. One of the few breweries that had survived the prohibition

Was the “Gottfried Krueger Brewery” in New Jersey, which now suddenly held a pole position. [cheerful music] [narrator] Within the first 18 hours after the prohibition amendment was repealed, the Krueger Brewery sold 35.000 kegs of beer. Only about two years later, the Gottfried Krueger Brewery launched its first canned beer.

The advantages of cans were obvious: they are unbreakable, easy to transport and keep the beer cool for a long time. [cheerful music] I actually think it’s great because you can get canned beer to go much cooler than beer in a glass bottle. It makes it the perfect drink for a hot summer day.

[narrator] The first year, the Krueger Brewery sold 200 million cans of beer. The taste elicited some debate. For it to be canned, beer must be pasteurized, in other words, heated to 70 degrees Celsius. For beer gourmets this is sacrileges. And despite this, or even because of it,

Canned beer had a cool and rebellious image right from the start. [cheerful music] The obvious thing to think about when you think about canned beer is sitting at the beach with your friends, with your family having a beer, opening a can, having a good time.

Apparently you can get tin canned beer, and it’s really cheap. Gosh, if I had known about that back then, when I was a teenager, things might have been a bit different. [narrator] Another “cool” canned drink makes a big splash on the market in 1963: Coca-Cola. [coca cola commercial music]

Coca-Cola was declared a cult right away. The first coke can, also called “diamond can”, because of its white, diamond-shaped print, is still a sought-after collector’s item even today. [narrator] Just like canned food, beverage cans were also difficult to open for a long time. The first ones came with the device

That could be used to punch a triangular opening into the lid. [gradual music] The decisive breakthrough came in 1964 – almost 30 years after the first canned beer was sold – when the so-called lift tab was invented. [narrator] The elusive “ideal” can opening method is still a work-in-progress. [fizzy sounds]

Whether as beverage or food packaging – tin cans experienced a real boom in the 1950s and 1960s. Several iconic canned foods hark back to this era. [cheerful music] In the 1950s, German parties were unimaginable without this special treat: Hawaiian toast. I guess it must be toast with something Hawaiian on top of it?

Maybe poke, that raw Hawaiian fish salad? Isn’t it Toast with a slice of ham and then pineapple on top? I have to say I can picture it – I am not sure I like picturing it and it does sound slightly odd, now that I’m saying it.

[narrator] Ham on toast, a slice of pineapple – from a can of course – topped off with a slice of processed cheese. Now that’s an interesting combination. [cheerful music] I love my food and I like trying out different stuff. I would certainly give it a taste. [narrator] In fact,

Related creations were known in the United States and France even before the 1950s. In America, grilled spamwiches – out of a can if need be – had long been popular. [cheerful music] But the true ancestor of “Hawaiian toast” is a ham & cheese sandwich from France, the Croque Monsieur,

Which was already being served in Parisian cafés in 1910. [cheerful music] Another 1950s iconic canned dish was Maggi’s “Ravioli in Tomato Sauce”. In 1959, it was Germany’s first ready-made pasta dish. This can offered “a taste of Italy”, “a taste of vacation”. Ravioli is delicious.

Conjure up the taste of southern Europe at your dinner table with Maggi’s egg noodle ravioli. Get Maggi’s ready-to-eat ravioli. In the 1950s and 60s, Italy was a dream destination for many Germans. It combined sunshine, the beach and the sea – but also exotic food.

[narrator] Since many Germans didn’t own refrigerators at that time, Maggi ravioli was offered in a can. As a so-called “wet” ready-to-eat dish, it only needed warming up before serving. [calm music] Another 1950s American classic of world renown is Campbell’s soup. [lively music]

The Joseph A. Campbell Preserve Company – aka “Campbell Soup Company” – had already been in operation since the 19th century, producing canned soups among other things. The big breakthrough came in 1900 when, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Campbell’s Soup was awarded a gold medal,

Which is still depicted on the cans to this day. [narrator] Partly due to their low price of just 10 cents a can, Campbell’s instant soups were a big hit. Moreover, the company invested in extensive advertising campaigns right from the start. [pitchman] Campbell’s Noo Noo Noodle O Soups.

Two new Noo Nooodle Soups you’re your kids will come running for with Boodels and Boodles of circular Noodles. Spoonable, unspillable, nonscid noodles…. [pitchman] [narrator] By the 1950s, at the latest, these soup cans had achieved cult status. They could be found in practically every American pantry. [pitchman]

[narrator] It looks like the American pop art artist Andy Warhol also took a liking to Campbell soup cans. This marked a departure from his usual motifs – the beautiful and the rich, including US actress Marilyn Monroe. In 1962, at the Ferus Gallery in L.A., Warhol showed the initially shocked art world

That a can could be an artist’s muse: Andy Warhol, the master of pop art, paid a special tribute to tin cans with his famous work of art called “Campbell’s Soup Cans”, which shows 32 pictures of different Campbell soup cans on canvas. [narrator] In 1996, the Campbell’s Soup Cans

Were sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York for 15 million dollars. So the canned soups go down in history as the most expensive preserved food of all time. [narrator] It is estimated that there are currently some 1200 different canned foods across the globe. Of these, 800 come from Japan alone.

That’s equivalent to 67 percent of all canned foods. 800 different canned goods! That’s insane. How would you go shopping? [narrator] Canned food cookbooks are now available to help navigate the Japanese canned food jungle. They were written by Hayato Kurokawa, a canned food chef. In Japan he’s known as the “Tin Can Professor”.

For instance, when I go to a restaurant and eat something good, I always think about how to make that recipe using canned food. [narrator] One of his all-time favorites is cinnamon chicken, which consists of one can of yakitori, coffee cream and cinnamon. The recipe is as follows:

Heat the sealed can of yakitori in hot water for five minutes before carefully opening it. Add cream and cinnamon. [Hayato Kurokawa] I like a lot of cinnamon. [narrator] Voilà, cinnamon chicken à la Tin Can Professor. It tastes like Morocco, though I’ve never been there. I guess it saves time whilst cooking

But I am a bit dubious about whether I’d eat that myself. Cinnamon and chicken? To be honest, it sounds interesting to me. I would try it. I mean it looks and sounds foul beyond all believe, but I thinks it’s worth giving it a go.

[narrator] Kurokawa discovered his passion for canned food early on. He had a first, formative experience during a camping trip that he remembers well. When I was four, I went on a camping trip with my Dad’s company. That was the first time I had “Gomoku” mixed rice and vegetables in a can.

It was about this big. You can still buy those cans. [narrator] Kurokawa insists that he “only” eats three canned meals a day. Sometimes, however, he has to make extreme exceptions as part of his job – when he tests new products.

Doing magazine or TV work, I’ve had to try fifty cans in a day. The most I’ve had to try was 100 cans in a day. [narrator] Kurokawa also happens to be a passionate can collector. His collection comprises around 4000 cans from all over the world.

When I go overseas, I always bring some home, and when friends go abroad for work, and so on, they know I’ll be content with a souvenir of canned food. So, I can acquire canned food from places I’ve never been. On these shelves, and in those boxes, I have about 4000 altogether.

That’s around 1000 varieties. [narrator] Such a can collection would have been a real treasure even in the 1940s. [dynamic music] During World Wars I and II, the US Government repeatedly made calls for metal donations. Americans were encouraged to donate absolutely anything that wasn’t nailed down to their troops. [dynamic music]

Pots and pans, and shovels and forks and of course tin cans. There were very precise instructions on how you disposed of the can. [pitchman] After she washes off the label, she cuts away the top and bottom. Next, she flattens the can with her foot. [dynamic music]

[narrator] Hundreds of tons of scrap and discarded metal came together this way. It was melted down in factories and subsequently processed into new aircraft parts like this propeller. So, it was the defense industry that invented the first form of metal recycling. Cans served a somewhat different purpose during the Cold War.

The US was engaged in a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. To this end, the US military conducted numerous nuclear tests in the Nevada desert in the 1950s. Under the code name “Operation Cue”, they tested the effects of nuclear radiation on everyday objects including houses, clothing, cooking utensils and canned food.

[frightening music] A ghost town comprising ten completely furnished houses was thus built in the middle of nowhere – occupied by dummies. [frightening music] Ten houses of various different saw were built and furnished and even given inhabitants as mannequins were set up in bed watching television in the cellar hiding from the bomb.

[narrator] As is customary in American households, canned food was also stored in the houses. But for testing purposes some of it was buried outdoors. The US Army wanted to find out whether it was safe to eat canned food after a nuclear explosion. [bomb explosion] On 5 May 1955,

An atomic bomb weighing 30 kilotons was detonated over the test site This was not an experiment that we would do today for all sorts of reasons but certainly we wouldn’t do it in the way that they did. The experiment happened, the bomb was dropped, the area was radiated and then almost immediately

People without protective equipment came in to see what had happened. [narrator] It transpired that even objects that were seemingly undamaged by the explosion had nevertheless been heavily irradiated and were thus life-threatening. [frightening music] Back in the real world, people were informed of the nuclear tests by news reports broadcast via television.

Thanks to the economic boom of the 1950s, many could now afford TVs – along with many other luxury goods. 150 years earlier, the average household managed to get by with about 150 items. Now this number rose to 20,000: from toothpicks to hair setting lotion to canned soup.

And all these new products came with elaborate packaging. [cheerful guitar music] But once these things had outlived their usefulness, most wound up in landfills. The US was facing an acute waste crisis. Only with the emergence of the “Green movement” in the 1970s and 80s

Did the concept of waste separation begin to catch on. A critical first step toward recycling. While cans can be recycled, they can also be upcycled by creatively repurposing them rather than melting them down. [synthesizer music] I love upcycling anything, and tin cans were a great way

Of making stationery like pencil holders, and desk tidies. I certainly remember playing with tin cans as a child, connecting them with a string, turning them into a telephone, but I can’t say I’ve done that recently. [narrator] That this is fun is evident from looking at these recycling ideas.

Tin cans are great for upcycling, but it’s also easy to recycle them, in other words, to make new cans out of old ones. In 2017, about 96 percent of all cans were recycled in Germany, a slightly higher recycling rate than that of glass containers. [breaking glass] The overall ecological footprint of tin cans

Is even a little better than that of the glass. One reason for this is that canned food is lighter and therefore easier to transport. [narrator] But glass, on the other hand, requires significantly less water during manufacturing – and also during recycling. It’s a head-to-head race between the two types of packaging

– and in the end the surprising winner is something completely different. [narrator] The Tetra Pak comes out far ahead in terms of its environmental impact. But even the most environmentally-friendly packaging is no match for locally-sourced, unpackaged vegetables. So do cans still have a future in times of climate change?

At least in 2020, sales of tin cans are skyrocketing. With the spread of the Corona virus and the consequent quarantine, food cans are more popular than ever. Sometimes they were even sold out in supermarkets. Because during this time, the main criterion for choosing which food to buy is shelf life

– and when it comes to that, canned food is still unbeatable. As the Corona virus started to spread, people were panic-buying anything that would last. And that certainly involved tin cans. I couldn’t get my hands on any baked beans. [narrator] This so-called “prepping” – in other words,

Stockpiling supplies, including food, for a doomsday scenario – is a trend that’s been around a long time in the US. So called Preppers were usually laughed at a lot, but I suppose many of them felt vindicated when the pandemic started. [narrator] But the future of the can

Might lie not only in earthly states of emergency. Canned food, which is usually served on Sundays on the International Space Station ISS, is a menu highlight. [soothing sounds] Astronauts consider their canned meals to be particularly delicious. The selection ranges from Japanese teriyaki to German cheese spaetzle.

To make canned food taste good, you need very special culinary know-how. That’s because 400 kilometres above the earth, people can’t properly taste sweet, salty and aromatic foods. The sense of taste suffers due to change air pressure and a different humidity level. It poses a real challenge for the cooks.

In space travel every single gram counts. So the lightweight cans offer a clear advantage. The future of the can seems to be safe for the time being – at least in space. But it’s more difficult to make a prognosis for earthly canned food: I think the Covid-19 crisis has shown us

That in fact there is a good future for the tin can. It’s a future in which we are able to preserve things, just as we always wanted to. [narrator] The invention of the tin can is a milestone in the history of preservation techniques. In opening a can, that has been sealed

For 5, 10, 15, 20 decades, you’re like opening a time capsule. It’s like a little time-machine. Even if it’s only baked beans. [narrator] Originally intended for the military, this invention soon found its way into regular households. Since then, cans are at home everywhere:

In Japan, in the art world – even in outer space. They are light and robust and therefore just perfect for transportation – even in space! [narrator] Even though the can’s future is written in the stars, it’s clear that nothing is as durable and resistant as cans.

I think tin cans will always be popular. For centuries, there has been no better way of preserving food to this day.