PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2019

PREFORM PRODUCTION PET planet Insider Vol. 20 No. 12/19 www.petpla.net 25 Delivering sustainability through lightweighting Larger bottle, less weight As the PET industry drives towards a circular manufacturing model, lightweighting helps to reduce the amount of post-consumer material that has to be recovered and reprocessed in the first place. Lightweighting plays an important role in reducing the environmental footprint of the packaging industry, as the hierarchy graph below illus- trates. A lighter package, providing it still meets fundamental protection requirements, reduces the amount of material used and consequently cuts the amount of plastic than can poten- tially become litter or be improperly disposed of. Sacmi’s team was tasked to design and develop a new bottle that would provide competitive advantages in the marketplace, with no loss of performance. The specific project brief was as follows:  600ml bottle  sleek design  significantly lighter than com- petitors’ solutions, which weighed between 11.5 g and 12.5 g  easy to manufacture  top load similar to competitors’, which ranged between 26-56N (empty bottle, not vented) Focus on the neck Sacmi’s experts decided to change the neck finish, from 29/25mm to 25/22mm - a change that, on its own, delivered savings of about 1.4 g of PET. Total weight targeted was below 9 g. In order to achieve this and still be able to achieve suitable preform length and reasonable length to thick- ness ratio (L/t), Sacmi opted for an ogive tip bottom. The bottle’s sleek design fol- lowed the familiar look of other bottles already in use by the client company. Lighter but stronger The stretch ratio:  AXIAL = 3.35  HOOP = 4.11  PLANAR = 13.75 allowed for relatively wide blowing pro- cessing windows, though being high enough to produce a sturdy bottle. It features a non-vented top load value of 47N. This is better than most other bottles already on the market despite being significantly lighter, states the company. www.sacmi.com The Ogive tip allows lengthening of the preform in order to have a wide process window in terms of stretch ratios and keep a relatively low L/T = 40.2. The cap weight was kept at 0.8g despite featuring an extended height for conveni- ence. PREFORM Special IMDvista INOX Line Closure Inspection – 100% Inline – Complete solution out of one hand. – Robust, compact and very flexible. – One control center (HMI) for the whole line. IMDvista PECO LUX Preform Monitoring – Shot by Shot – Requires no additional floor space. – No preform orientation necessary and no moving parts. – Up to 80% part inspection. Inspection Systems for the Plastic Packaging Industry IMDvista BOCO SCAN We scan and measure your Bottle Inline – Transparent, opaque, shiny and matte bottles in one system. – Calibrated measurement +/- 5 μm. – Fast automatic product change. Swiss Made | www.imdvista.ch