BOTTLE MAKING 18 PETplanet Insider Vol. 26 No. 07+08/25 www.petpla.net Integrated Plastics Pty Ltd’s Integrally Moulded Handle (IMH) technology includes PET closures for recyclability One bottle, one material Australian firm Integrated Plastics Pty Ltd has developed a patented Integrally Moulded Handle (IMH) technology creating fully recyclable, single-material PET bottles with built-in handles. By partnering with nviro1 to develop an all-PET closure, the company now offers a 100% PET packaging solution that is intended to simplify recycling and to meet the demands of a circular economy. Australian company Integrated Plastics Pty Ltd, based in Sydney, New South Wales, offers a patented technology that integrates the handle of largercapacity PET bottles, creating a singlematerial PET or rPET bottle. This single material design of the IMH (Integrally Moulded Handle) technology integrates the handle into the bottle and eliminates separate production equipment and also means that the need to separate polymers for recycling is eliminated, enabling total recyclability within existing PET streams, supporting closedloop recycling and the circular economy, and helping to streamline global waste management. The company has collaborated with a fellow Sydney-based company, nviro1, to develop a PET closure as well, which means that it can offer an entire 100% PET IMH package. Integrated Plastics’ achievement has been recognised with two Worldstar 2025 Awards for Packaging excellence: one from South Africa and the second from Australia and New Zealand. Patented and unique features Integrated Plastics’ design features a number of advanced, patented and exclusive characteristics. The company has been offering handled bottle designs since 2006, which, unusually, use standard bottle-grade PET, with IV (intrinsic viscosity) values of 0.76 to 0.84dL/g. Injection moulding equipment requires no modifications in order to produce IMH preforms. Standard injection moulding machines can be equipped with dedicated moulds from Husky, Sipa, GDXL, Kisan, Petform, and Classic Tools. On the blowmoulding side, systems from Sipa and SDB-Korea incorporate special features to handle IMH preforms - where the handle is integrally moulded—while still operating within established PET processing platforms. Today’s IMH offer is an evolution of existing moulding technology by Integrated Plastics. The company says that dispensing with separate handles across its current range 1-5 L bottles offer a number of advantages. Eliminating mixed materials from recycling streams “Mixed-material bottles require manual or robotic insertion of HDPE handles, which reduces production speed and increases handling complexity,” said Nick Mellen, Managing Director of Integrated Plastics. “The IMH process avoids this step entirely. It by Ruari McCallion
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