craftwomen | aluminumsmc

Little Saturday is a concept adopted in Norway, Finland and Sweden, that adds Wednesday to the list of “drinking days”, with Friday and Saturday. Many nightclubs and bars stay open late and offer many kinds of little Saturday specials (rock shows, cheaper drinks etc.). Norwegian teenagers and young adults often use Lille Lørdag as a synonym for Wednesday (Onsdag in Norwegian.) The same concept also exists in some other Nordic countries. In Sweden it is known as Lill-Lördag and in Finland it is called pikkulauantai.

So if you feel for a little break during your week, you could call in some friends to go hang out at pubs, drink some beer, such as BudLight Platinum, the first beer to adopt a twist-off cap, and a 50% stronger aluminum that helps the beer get colder faster, as we blogged here.

However, if you choose to go for the conventional beer can you could even collect the aluminum pulltabs to make a fashionable and modern handbag such as the ones specially designed and crafted by Escama Studio craftwomen in Brazil.

Instead of beer you go for wine, you will have to consider going for the cork or screw-cap for your wine bottle. The advantages of each bottle you can find in our article here.

Of course you cannot drink on empty stomach. So if you snack on some potato chips, don’t forget to do the test to find out whether or not your potato chip bags are made of aluminum or Mylar, a fusion of plastic film with a sort of metallic ink, which make it not recyclable, as we explained here.

Any choice you make to provide your week that early weekend break widely adopted in Norway, Sweden and Finland, gives you the opportunity to act more environment-friendly and give the disposals of your enjoyment a proper treatment.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide array of aluminum metal products, in varying forms, sizes and for a number of applications. For our full list of products that we offer check out our website here. Be sure to join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Try also our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

You can also read more articles by our team at SMC:

TREAT YOUR POTATO CHIPS BAG CORRECTLY

MASSIVE HYPER-REALIST ALUMINUM SCULPTURE WORTH MILLIONS

RECYCLED ALUMINUM PULLTABS MADE POPULAR BY THE BRAZILIAN COOPERATIVE “ESCAMA STUDIO”

NEW IPHONE6 CASES LEAKED BY A SMARTPHONE DESIGN COMPANY

INSIDE ROCKETS: THE ROLE OF ICE AND ALUMINUM

ALUMINUM EXHIBITION ENCOURAGES IMAGINATION IN ENGINEERING

THE NEW RECLOSABLE SCREW-TOP ALUMINUM BOTTLE FOR YOUR BEER

GIVE A LOOK OF LUXURY TO YOUR BEAUTY PACKAGE

LIQUID PACKAGING MADE FAMOUS BY A WATCH COMPANY

5 MODERN INNOVATIVE PACKAGING CONCEPTS

WORLD’S MOST ICONIC SPORTING VENUES UTILIZE ALUMINUM TO PORTRAY MODERN FEEL

FOR OUR SWEDISH READERS: TRÖTT? ANVÄND RULLTRAPPAN!

TIRED? USE THE ESCALATOR!

ALUMINUM ENSURES SMOOTH SAILING AT SEA

FOR OUR BRAZILIAN READERS: ANÁLISE DO SETOR DE ALUMÍNIO NO BRASIL

THE TRUTH IS REVEALED ABOUT THE HEALTH CONCERNS ASSOCIATED WITH ALUMINUM COOKWARE

FULL-METAL DRESS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING

THE EXOTIC TITANIUM BICYCLE

CORK OR SCREW CAP FOR YOUR WINE BOTTLE?

MIX OF ICE AND ALUMINUM AS ROCKET FUEL

FOOD TRUCKS INDUSTRY SWITCHING FROM CHEESEBURGERS AND FRIES TO LETTUCE WRAPS AND KALE CHIPS

AVIATION MADE POSSIBLE BY LIGHT WEIGHT ALUMINUM: A BRIEF HISTORY

2015 LUXURY VEHICLES EMPHASIZE ALUMINUM COMPONENTS

IN ECONOMIC TURMOIL, ENVIRONMENT REMAINS KEY

ICONIC ALUMINUM ROOFING AROUND THE WORLD

FOR OUR CHINESE READERS: 日本不锈钢产业进口

SMC #BuildingValueAcrossTheGlobe

Source: Wikipedia

Pictures: escamastudio.com, crescentbeer

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

Craft cooperatives, also known as social enterprises, are now finding new means to empower members of their communities to earn money.

“Escama Studio”, which means fish scales in Portuguese, is a Brazilian craft cooperative offering women in the ‘satellite cities’ of Brasília business practices in hand production of bags using recycled aluminum pulltabs as main raw material.

Escama Studio’s craftwomen

The craftswomen receive business training and are fairly paid for their piecework with a price set by the cooperative. Escama’s purses are as ethical and eco-friendly as they are made entirely from recycled materials – some of the bags uses over 700 aluminum pull-tabs recycled from soda cans in Brazil. Each piece comes with a hang tag bearing the signature of the person who made it. On their website the artist profiles and picture are made available to the public, where you could leave a message to the artist. In addition, Escama donates 3 percent of gross annual sales directly back to the cooperatives.

Escama Studio’s handbags and their respective craftwomen’s name

“Stay-on-tab” pulltab version used in the production of handbags

The majority of the beverage cans’ pulltabs used in the production of the eco-friendly handbags are made of aluminium (75 percent). Another more rare material used to produce pulltabs is tin-plated steel, which accounts for the rest of the worldwide production of pulltabs (25 percent). These pulltabs are known as “stay-on-tab”, invented by Ermal Fraze and Omar Brown. The “stay-on-tab” version features the “easy-open ecology end” which replaced old plain lids (known as shells) in order to reduce injuries and roadside litter caused by removable tabs. The mechanism uses a separate tab attached to the upper surface as a lever to depress a scored part of the lid, which folds underneath the top of the can and out of the way of the resulting opening.

Worldwide production for all beverage cans is approximately 475 billion cans per year worldwide, 100 billion per year in the US, 52 billion per year in Europe, growing about 3 percent annually. Recycling the aluminum pulltabs is definitely a clever and very creative way that actually makes you feel like you are doing something positive for the planet.

Shanghai Metal Corporation does not take any part in the handbag purchase. We are proud of initiatives such as Escama Studio as an empowering cooperative bringing hope and happiness to the community and the society as a whole.

Escama Studio’s handbag collection

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide array of aluminum sheet (aluminum plate) used in the production of beverage can, caps and ring-pull. For our full list of products that we offer check out our website here. Be sure to join the conversation in our LinkedIn group, Facebook, and Twitter. Try also our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.