Everyone’s attention will be set on Miami this Sunday, with the Super Bowl taking place between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs. With the Super Bowl comes much more than a normal football game. This is a breeding ground for business deals, celebrity appearances, media correspondence, and so much more. This year is no different, but there is one additional change that will garner attention.

Drinking cup technology innovation??

That’s right, this year at the Hard Rock Stadium, 50 thousand plastic cups will be replaced by aluminum receptacles. These will be used for not just beer and liquor, but for all PepsiCo products as well.

This trend has been catching on in the United Kingdom, and is now being transferred over to the world’s biggest stage, but is the switch worth it?

There is a definitive argument for both sides of the aluminum vs. plastic cups debate. It’s clear that aluminum cups are much easier to recycle after use, but studies have also shown that manufacturing aluminum cups can be more environmentally toxic than manufacturing plastic cups instead. The main difference here is the recyclability: there is initial pollution with creating aluminum cups, but recycling these cups is much easier to do and reduces the amount of plastic pollution that is plaguing our oceans.

During last year’s Super Bowl, the NFL made a goal to reduce the amount of waste generated from the game sent to landfills. They believe that they succeeded in their mission by recycling 91 percent of trash that day and this year they are looking to improve even more. The success and prominence of these containers could carry over into other huge events as well, including the upcoming Summer Olympics.

The only logical next step from implementing aluminum cups is reducing single use receptacles that would give our environment even more of a fighting chance.