PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2019

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Bunsenstr. 14 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 [email protected] EDITORIAL Kay Barton Heike Fischer Gabriele Kosmehl Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Waldemar Schmitke Anthony Withers WikiPETia.info [email protected] MEDIA CONSULTANTS Martina Hirschmann [email protected] Johann Lange-Brock [email protected] phone: +49 6221-65108-0 fax: +49 6221-65108-28 LAYOUT AND PREPRESS EXPRIM Werbeagentur | exprim.de Matthias Gaumann READER SERVICES Till Kretner [email protected] PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67354 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet Insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trademarks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 10/19 www.petpla.net Dear readers, While politics is entangling itself in half-baked plastic bans and pseudo-recycling regulations that environmental activists consider to be somewhat last-ditch, the plastics industry has long been working on sustainable concepts. In the PET industry in particular, we have been focusing for decades on saving weight and energy. Admittedly, it was initially the cost savings that spurred on this trend. However, companies today are even more prepared to invest in material and energy savings. The origins were an optimisation of bottle design, in particular wall construction, so as to achieve the same mechanical properties using less material. The material accumulations at the neck and base of the preform that arise from the injection moulding process fell by the wayside in the next step. The first to trigger this size trend was definitely Cor- vaglia, which invested very early on in the development of weight- saving neck geometries. Today, the heavy PCO 1810 is hardly in use; the PCO 1881 is the latest technology. Neck-Lite is breaking new ground by reducing the material accumulation beneath the neck ring using crosspieces. The next big step was reducing the material use at the injection point on the Cappello, Ecobase and Mint-Tec bases. Not forgetting Sipa with the injection-compression moulding system for preforms, which made redundant many material accumu- lations arising from injection moulding processes. At SBM too, ever more sophisticated preform heating options came into use. These basically increased heating efficiency, and also enabled ever more precise heating of parts of the preform so as to optimise material distribution during the stretch blowing process. The peak of achieve- ment was surely when heating was done using laser diodes, as pre- sented by Sidel in 2017. In our interview on page 9, Stefan Bock identifies an even greater potential within companies besides material and energy savings. Untrained employees or poor machine maintenance lead to high scrap rates; material and energy waste that finds no mention in offi- cial statistics. There is still a great deal to do. Your PETplanet Insider Editorial Team