Aluminum Shortage In The United States Due To COVID 19?

Due to COVID 19 related nightlife restrictions and social distancing since the beginning of March 2020, is the United States now experiencing a shortage of aluminum because of this?

By: Ringo Bones

Demand for cans, especially aluminum cans, had been booming since the COVID 19 lockdown restrictions had been enforced, propelling can makers to boost manufacturing capacity to prevent shortages. And the trend is especially true in the United States as can manufacturers capitalize on a trend that they’ll hope will stick. When bars and restaurants were ordered to close to close by authorities across the United States and with nightlife restrictions still in effect in most areas, consumers rushed to buy large packs of drinks -typically sold in cans –in supermarkets and sales of canned food also jumped, not to mention that most hand sanitizers sold in bulk are contained in aluminum cans. But given that the United States sources its aluminum mostly through recycling form seemingly virtually unlimited supply of decommissioned aircraft from boneyards for about half a century, why the resulting aluminum shortage?

There are various notable aircraft boneyards / aircraft graveyards spread across the United States. The most notable of which is the Boneyard in Arizona made famous during the first Top Gun movie when the band Berlin shot a music video there, and the one in the Mojave Desert in California well known as the graveyard for large decommissioned passenger jets were the number one source of recycled aluminum in the United States to be used in the food and beverage industry during the past 50 years. If you ever see these sites, even from just documentary films, it is not too farfetched to assume that America has a virtually unlimited source of recyclable aluminum that could perhaps last for a few centuries with existing demand. And yet the food and beverage industry of the United States’ demand for aluminum cans skyrocketed during the COVID 19 lockdown that American aluminum can manufacturers were forced to import billions of aluminum cans from oversees manufacturers since August 2020.

Given the rather strict existing COVID 19 travel restrictions are still in effect, has this also affected America’s ability to recycle used aluminum cans? I mean financially disadvantaged people who used to collect these cans and sell them to aluminum recycling plants for a pittance probably now can’t do this as freely as before in post COVID 19 America. Let’s just hope that aluminum won’t become again a “noble metal” that’s twice as expensive as gold – like that time of the first 20 years after aluminum’s discovery by Sir Humphry Davy back in 1827.

Business Interruption Insurance: Small Business Savior During The COVID 19 Pandemic?

It is carried in some small business insurance policies, but can business interruption insurance save one’s fledging business in the time of the COVID 19 pandemic?

By: Ringo Bones

If you still don’t have this coverage, it is likely too late to purchase it now as insurance companies usually won’t cover losses for a crisis that’s already underway. However, after COVID 19 blows over, you should look at this small business insurance policy in the future. Some small business insurance policies carry business interruption insurance clauses, either as a stand-alone policy or part of an overall package policy. Depending on the type of policy your business holds, you may have coverage for some types of losses. However, there’s a good chance the coverage might be limited or contain exclusions. This is because there are other “potential pandemics” that occurred in recent years.

After the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, many insurance companies have updated their business interruption policies to exclude infectious diseases. Every policy varies, so it depends on the wording of your policy, its exclusions and limitations. Review your policy and talk to your insurance agent to see what, if anything, your policy covers. But policies that provide coverage to events as catastrophic as the still ongoing COVID 19 pandemic will be more likely than not to carry a heavy premium.