PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2015

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 11 PET planet insider Vol. 16 No. 11/15 www.petpla.net very limited financial resources at our disposal we managed to come to an agreement and they gave us this chance.” The deal encompassed not only the bottling plant but also the above-mentioned pool, the ballroom, a number of buildings and just under 11.5ha of land including a campsite. In 1986 the company went public and, with the capital generated, the first 1-gallon bottling line was set up. From 1988 onwards Eldorado made a conscious decision to take a step in the direction of small packaging, thus picking up on a trend that is gathering momentum in the water sector. The customer base was originally made up of around 20 outlets; today the bottling plant supplies some 100,000 people from its spring which supplies 120 gallons per minute with annual turnover running at around US$9 mil- lion. The filling operation is carried out using equipment from Fogg. “To start with we only had 5-gallon glass bottles then we moved to PC 5-gallon contain- ers followed by HDPE gallon containers but later, around 1995, PET bottles were gradu- ally introduced into our small volume production. Today we have a mixture of Glass, PC, HDPE and PET containers. The 5-gallon containers are now mainly to be found in the home delivery sector whilst the small PET bottles go to a number of small grocery shops, chains and supermarkets. 95% of our sales are here in Colorado, the rest go to a few neighbouring states.” The annual bottling volume is currently around 34 million litres, approximately 4 million litres of which go into PET bottles in our 0.5l, 1l and 1.5l ranges. The thickness of the bottle is deliberately greater than is usual in the lightweight segment for water, to ensure a tactilely pleasing customer experience when handling the bottle. The necks incorporate PCO1810. All the PET bottles are bought in through Amcor - and here there is something quite sensational: all of Eldora- do’s 0.5 to 1l bottles are made from 100% r-PET. “We were anxious to be early adopters of a green approach and only the second company in the world, the first in the USA, to use 100% r-PET at all. We have a good business relationship going back some time with Amcor and ultimately it was also in their interests to explore this with us by way of a kind of experiment. Looking at the pricing levels, as far as we are concerned r-PET bottles are practically on a par with virgin PET bottles.” On the bottle label there is a logo drawing attention to the recycled material, but Mr Martin is convinced that the consumers’ basic reason for buying the product is the quality of the water. Regarding this, the company has already walked off with a number of prizes. “We are now moving for- ward with the development of func- tional water. Eldorado is marketing six different flavours of water with vitamin additives and organic sugar cane. The trend is moving away from classic CSDs to still, healthy beverages.” www.eldoradosprings.com