PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2010

CAPPING / CLOSURES 37 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 05/10 www.petpla.net No one knows your plant better than you yourself. That’s why we customise our lines to suit your visions – never the other way round. Just tell us your destination: we’ll find the route, supply the equipment, and stay with you until you arrive where you want to go. There’s only one thing you’ll never get from us: limitations. Because you are the sole arbiter of what’s possible. www.krones.com You want it? We build it! The machines of the ErgoBloc L have been awarded the enviro seal, by virtue of their minimised media consumption. the company’s multinational custom- ers. After seven years in production, the company has gathered expertise from more than one billion commercial one-piece 28mm hot fill closures. Significant potential for one- piece hot fill closures The juices and sports drinks market in North America is so far a relatively virgin market for one-piece hot fill clo- sures and remains probably the biggest market still using two-piece clo- sures today. This means there are, potentially, huge savings available for the beverage filling industry if it converts to lighter packaging materials. From the closure manufacturer’s per- spective, the goal is to develop a system that simultaneously resists hot fill conditions and also allows the use of lightweight neck finishes, with reduced neck wall thickness and consequent cost savings and carbon foot- print improvement. Bericap is now offering a new hot-fill initiative to the market: neck wall thicknesses as low as 2mm (0.08”) together with a newly-modified one- piece 38mm closures – as a first step. Initial results have established that even thinner neck walls, together with a Dou- bleSeal one-piece closure show no leakages during the hot fill process - the packages remain absolutely tight. The DoubleSeal system maintains and supports the neck wall between the inner boreseal of the closure and its outer seal. Neck distortion is limited during the hot fill process, leading to proper tightness of the closure and thus securing the integrity of the beverage in its package. This initial success encour- ages minimising neck wall thickness further. Final weight savings for the 38mm neck alone of approximately 2.5g are projected. A similar development can be predicted for the 28mm Double- Seal one-piece closure: the future neck finish for a hot fill bottle will be most probably the same as used for carbon- ated soft drinks (CSD) products today. When conversion from PCO 1810 hot fill neck to PCO 1881 standard finish becomes possible, a total weight saving for closure and neck of approximately 33% seems feasible. These savings are based on the 28mm DoubleSeal one-piece closure - a two-piece closure could not achieve it. www.bericap.com Lipton Ice tea capped with a DoubleSeal 28 HF