How to make your partying environment-friendly

Ever wonder how your Saturday night is affecting the earth? You may not realize it, but your typical weekend activities have environmental repercussions. So, what are the most environmentally responsible ways to party?

For the fun loving environmentalist, drinking locally produced and packaged beer in glass bottles is the best option.

It takes a massive amount of energy to produce aluminum cans -- an average of 7.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity for each pound of virgin aluminum.

Aluminum is made from bauxite, the third most common element on earth. The United States manufactures aluminum on a large scale. Removing bauxite from the earth contributes to environmental problems such as deforestation.

Bauxite is recovered by opencast mining, which destroys land. Roads must also be built through previously open areas to allow for workers to travel to and from the site of the mine.

Glass is made from sand mixed with limestone. Melting sand into glass requires less energy than making aluminum out of bauxite.

Although aluminum production is more energy intensive than glass production, in some cases it can be difficult to decide whether it is more ecological to drink out of an aluminum can or a glass bottle. Glass is a lot heavier than aluminum, so the energy costs of transporting glass are substantial and would exceed those of transporting aluminum.

Drinking locally bottled beer or wine saves energy. For information on brewing your own beer, you can visit websites such as http://www.thebeeressentials.com or http://www.ebrew.com.

Both glass and aluminum can be recycled, but the benefits of recycling aluminum exceed the benefits of recycling glass because producing aluminum is more energy-consuming.

In 2001, Tufts recycled 100 tons of bottles and cans (about 3.25 percent of the total trash generated). It is unclear what percentage of beer bottles and cans get recycled at Tufts.

All in all, the environmental effects of drinking out of aluminum cans versus glass bottles are minimal. "Environmentalists should be more concerned about other issues," Recycling Coordinator for Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE) Anja Kollmuss said. Instead of stressing about your drink bottles, worry about the car you are driving or how often you fly. Take care of your car so that its many aluminum parts have a long and fruitful life.