R&D Leverage Europe wins Horners Award
R&D Leverage Europe, acknowledged as a provider to the single stage blow-moulding industry, continually demonstrates its commitment to new technology development by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with PET, PP, and Eastman’s trademarked co-polyester Triton.
After the company’s success with the Twist bottle, R&D Leverage showed their new development in PET. That resulted in the creation of the ICE bottle using a specially adapted PET resin from Eastman. “PET has some first rate attributes including its glass-like clear quality, it’s shatterproof and recyclable,” notes Alan Tolley, Managing Director for R&D Leverage Europe. “But, it also has some down sides in that it’s a material that doesn’t like square shoulders, tight radius or deep base recesses. We developed the ICE bottles to have all the design factors that PET doesn’t like to get a commercially viable bottle to show what can be achieved with PET.”
The ICE bottle was entered into the 2016 Horners Bottlemakers Award competition, run jointly by the Worshipful Company of Horners and the British Plastics Federation. The award is given annually for entries demonstrating innovation in plastics design and manufacture or in processing plastics.
A panel of judges gave this year’s prestigious award for Design and Innovation in Plastics and the Horners Bottlemaking Award to R&D Leverage Europe. As is the custom, the award was presented during an evening event by the Rt. Honorable the Lord Mayor of London. The award, first held in 1947, is thought to be the oldest award for plastics in the world and is the cornerstone of the Horners many activities supporting design and education in the plastics industry.
“These well-deserved awards are a reward for the excellence of all the team members who participated in the development of the ICE bottle,” says Tolley. “These Awards are much appreciated both by the recipients and the Horners. We pushed the boundaries of what we do and are constantly pushing the boundaries to stay on the leading edge of what we do.”
