At the Cutting Edge of Beverage Filling - Verpackungs-Rundschau

DESIGN
Style Comes to the
Plastic Bottle
Three young Italian designer-architects
Luca Casini, Stefano Laforgia
and Francesca Lavagna have redesigned
the plastic bottle. They have remodelled
it to fit the requirements of the
consumer without losing sight of the limitations
imposed by production. During
the analysis of plastic mineral water packaging,
they came across problems that
had yet to be solved. At least up to now.
Over the last few years more and more
emphasis has been placed on the expressive
and communicative role of packaging,
something that has at times contrasted
with the understandable need to reduce
production costs.
This trend has recently been confirmed
in the plastic bottle for mineral water, given
the need to highlight all the features
of a substance that has no smell, colour or
taste, that has allowed the container by
its very definition to become the “vehicle”
of the product image.
Large glass – tear and stack
A monomaterial, one-litre container in
heatformed PET or PP with a film of the
same material glued across the top, offering
a cheap and effective way of ensuring
reclosability. To enable easy stacking of
empties, the closing film can be torn away
allowing for a rational and easy disposal
Cut and stack Minimising gaps
of empties in the home.Given the reduced
size of the opening, the horizontal cross
section has been redesigned to facilitate
pouring whilst the body of the container
has been modelled to improve gripping
and resistance to side and axial pressure.
When stored, the glasses are placed on
top of each other and set out side-by-side
each alternate glass being placed upsidedown,
the bases fitting against the
mouths; the glasses stack easily.
Roll-up – reducing the size of the
empties
Devised as an alternative to the vertical
crushing of bottles which involves a
number of problems. “Roll-up” proposes
side-crushing of containers by rolling
them up from the base, which because of
its thickness, can also be used as a lever.
An eco-compatible plastic strip with a low
melt flow rate, wraps and fixes the body
that has been folded back on itself. The
tab stretches down from the collar,located
at the base of the bottle top created by a
side fixture on the mould. The edge of the
strip has a ruckled surface to make gripping
easier and to help fix it to the upper
slotted hole. The tab is glued to the body
of the bottle under the traditional paper
label and is torn off as soon as the strip
is lifted for waste separation after use. The
Wearable water container
system can be applied easily to most
bottles used in the trade.
Cut and stack – effective home stockage
of empties
This system has been devised studying
the angles of the walls of the bottle to allow
the stacking of the parts obtained by
cutting the empty bottles close to the
point of maximum cross diameter as
marked on the container.One can leave an
edge joining the two separated parts of
the container, pushing down one of the
two parts 180°, this can then be stacked
with other bottles cut and bent over in the
same way. We have provided small, lowcost
tools and information for simplifying
cutting operations as well as special
A bottle crushed by steam
8 VR Beverage Packaging 1997