At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

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to plastics particularly stubbornly.When a company chops and changes (bottling in one material today and the other tomorrow), it frequently needs not only to make the modifications outlined above but also to change the temperature regulation of the washing equipment. Experts say that this is not exactly economical. A major bottling company informed us that PET bottles circulate between 17 and 20 times in practice. This is not very often by comparison with the figures recorded with glass bottles,which have always been far higher than planned by the companies themselves. Another interesting question is the percentage of PET deposit bottles that is actually returned. The figure is astonishingly high: 97% is what we were quoted. In view of the large deposit on them, they are returned in the same way as glass bottles,but companies also receive a large number of the wrong bottles: disposable bottles or bottles made by competitors. Special problems are, as we can see, encountered with PET bottles too. Not all the right bottles that are returned can be refilled, for example because their base ring is broken or because they are badly scratched.Some PET bottles go “cloudy” too, so they have to be scrapped as well. These bottling companies still think that PET and similar materials are where the future lies even so. Weight is the crucial point: in the load that is put on transport conveyors, in handling by the consumer and in logistics operations. This is made clear simply by comparing the volume of glass-bottled drinks that used to be loaded on a lorry with the amount that can now be loaded on the “cargo liners” that have been tailormade specifically for transporting the lightweight plastic bottle. High Shrink Even beer is already being bottled in PET, e.g. by the Hörlimann brewery in Switzerland, which is using a brown, multilayer 33 cl bottle with a nylon barrier layer for its lager (shelf life: 4 months). All the experts agree that it will be possible sooner or later to solve the much-quoted technical problems which can be experienced with the plastic bottle. The commitments entered into by the large bottling companies and, in particular, their suppliers in this area should not be forgotten here. It would be a debacle for them if their investments in such expensive equipment turned out to be a failure. It is, however, claimed that the glass bottle has not by any means reached the end of the road. This is partly due, it is said, to the extremely high cost of switching from glass to PET.The bottler does after all have to dispose of all his stocks of glass bottles and replace them by PET ones. And then it eight colours and applied over a 275 ml flint bottle from PLM.High shrink is achieved in a hot-air shrink tunnel from Intersleeve. ❐ A vodka and koolberry drink from Pioneer Brewing Company,the new product division of Whitbread Beer Co. comes in a bottle with a shrink sleeve from Fuji Seal Europe. The PVC sleeve is gravure printed in Problem-free Partitions The insertion of partitions between the bottles contained in a carton has always involved a number of disadvantages, such as the cost of cardboard,and the complexity of the operations required. A high number of machine stoppages, waste and consequent lower machine output, the large machine size and an uncomfortable location of the cardboard storage units,as well as the risk of damaging the still wet label with the friction between the parti- GLASS/PET is necessary to invest in many different additional pieces of equipment. If the plan is, for example,to use a small, lightweight bottle, it is – so the argument goes – no longer possible to process it on conventional machines with normal spraying pressure levels, since the bottles themselves hardly weigh anything. The system needs to be readjusted, because a small bottle of this kind behaves completely differently (as regards stability, for instance). Insiders suggest that many medium-sized companies are likely to be very reluctant to make the enormous investments that are needed to install new machinery.One example of this is Bad Dürrheimer Mineralbrunnen, which recently introduced a lightweight returnable glass bottle. The company management indicates that the investment required to convert the existing equipment to lightweight glass bottles amounts to DM 100000. An appropriate PET line would have cost DM 20 million. So the “glass/plastic bottle” issue is in the final analysis still unsettled, although it is in the meantime becoming clear that both of them do not necessarily have to be processed on one and the same line. Willy Tyroler 1 MarketLine, London 2 drinktec interbrau ‘97 - press release no. 9 tion and the bottle all contributed to the complexity of the operation On the other hand, partitions are often unavoidable because they preserve the condition of the product and prevent bottles from breaking, thus reducing the cost of transport insurance and storage Baumer’s new wrap-around machine that inserts partitions offers easier and quicker carton loading with a single carton storage unit located on ground level. The machine requires less space vertically and horizontally,offering improved safety conditions.Labels are no longer damaged because the partitions are fitted and positioned without rubbing against the label. The partition insertion unit can be activated or de-activated depending on what is required. ❏ VR Beverage Packaging 1997 21
GLASS/PET New RefPET Plant in the Czech Republic PLM Expanding to the East and West With an eye to the burgeoning German market and untapped potential to the East, PLM, the Sweden-based producer of beverage packaging, decided to establish a strategicallyplaced Ref-PET factory somewhere in the heart of Europe. Following extensive research and discussions with local representatives of a number of possible locations, the decision was taken to construct a new factory in the recently-established industrial park of the Czech town of As˘. Situated just a few kilometres from the German border, the plant was built in record time on a 30000 m 2 site. High Technology Plant Production manager in Aˇs is Tommy Hagberg, who explained that PLM decided to bring in the preforms for the bottles from Lidköpingtokeepoperations simple atthe beginning. Equipment to produce the preforms may eventually be installed in Aˇs, but not in the short term as this involves further high investment. Three production lines, all capable of making bottles between 0.5 and 2.0 l, are in operation, two single blow lines (SBOs), from the French machinery manufacturer SIDEL, for production of 5000 bottles an hour and a refPET bottles on one of the PLM lines in As˘ – the pre-forms come from Lidköping SRCF – a double blow line, for what PLM calls “second generation” refPET bottles with a higher crystallinity. Capacity of the SRCF is 6000 bottles and hour. These second generation refPet bottles can be washed at temperatures of between 70 and 75°C, weigh less than the single blow bottles and have reduced acetaldehyde residue.“Although more expensive to produce, the reduction in material needed almost outweighs the higher manufacturing costs and thus means our customers have to pay only slightly higher prices for these bottles,” Mr Hagberg commented. The PLM Factory in As˘ Factory Site 30 000 m 2 Production Floor Area 4000 m 2 Warehouse 5000 m 2 No. Of Employees 138 Shifts 3 eight-hour shifts on weekdays 2 twelve-hour shifts at weekends Products RefPET bottles Machinery Two Sidel SBOs One Sidel SRCF 22 VR Beverage Packaging 1997
Page 1 and 2: At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Fil
Page 3 and 4: COVER STORY At the Cutting Edge of
Page 5 and 6: DESIGN Style Comes to the Plastic B
Page 7 and 8: Tear and stack DESIGN Travel bottle
Page 9 and 10: BEER speed glass bottling line was
Page 11 and 12: BEER look of the design on the fini
Page 13 and 14: BEER To meet rising demand, Kaiser
Page 15 and 16: SOFT DRINKS No vehicle is too small
Page 17: GLASS/PET Chopping and Changing Gla
Page 21 and 22: CANS Photo: The Coca-Cola Company I
Page 23 and 24: CARTONS A Bottle Made of Cardboard
Page 25 and 26: LABELLING clean and dry. This enabl
Page 27 and 28: BITS & PIECES More Than Just Bottle

At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

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