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Ball is the world's largest maker of aluminium beverage cans — the recyclable metal behind much of the drinks aisle. After buying rival Rexam in 2016 it became the global can leader, and in 2024 it sold its century-old aerospace arm to BAE Systems for ~$5.6B to become a pure-play packaging company turning aluminium sheet into the cans for Coca-Cola, AB InBev, PepsiCo and thousands of other brands.

From ore to can and back again

Bauxite is smelted into aluminium, rolled into ultra-thin sheet by Novelis, and stamped by Ball into billions of cans — which, once drunk from, are recycled and melted straight back into new sheet. Ball sits at the high-volume product step of an unusually circular materials chain.

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