PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2011

CAPPING / CLOSURES 24 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 06/11 www.petpla.net PET Bottle caps study Of countries and cap sizes Caps constitute the most important interface between the bottle and the consumer; caps are what determine the haptics when the customer opens the bottle and drinks the contents. In addition to this, the thread and the cap make a significant contribu- tion to the overall weight of the bottle and as such pre- sent an element for consid- eration in the cooperative bottle study being carried out between PETplanet insider and KTI (Techni- cal University of Ilmenau, Department of Plastics Tech- nology). Features of the cap system covered include the type of thread, the diameter of the opening and weight and height of cover. of bottles covered. The dominant status of PCO is universally identifi- able here. France and USA, however, show a significantly higher proportion of INE threads by comparison to Ger- many. In Germany the investigation focused on discount markets; here there is the possibility of a correlation with the proportion of PCO threads (almost 90%). Plans for a supplemen- tary study into branded products are also underway with a view to produc- ing a complete picture of the German PET bottle market. A further aspect for consideration is the length of the thread, and the facility for distinguish- ing between conventional and short threads. As can be seen from Fig. 1, in order to do this we have primarily drawn on the INE and PCO Standards in the form of a classification based on a tall / short representation. An overall view shows that the proportion of con- ventional threads is still significantly higher than the proportion of short threads; however, short threads do make up an appreciable proportion. In Egypt many more bottles featuring a short thread are used than bottles with a conventional thread. In Ger- many there is a uniform incidence of Fig. 1: Types of cap by country Fig. 2: Cap weight and height by countries – bottles up to 3l PCO threads set the dominating standard when it comes to the bot- tles under review (cf: Fig. 1) followed by the INE Standards. In Egypt INE caps feature even more prominently than PCO caps. A consideration of the distribution of the caps may be best undertaken by reference to the major countries such as Germany, France and the USA because these allow a statistically robust conclusion to be drawn as a result of the high number