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Danone-owned water brand Volvic has launched its ‘greener bottle’, made with 25% recycled plastic and 20% plant material, on the UK market.

The bottle has a 38% lower packaging carbon footprint and 16% lower lifecycle footprint than the previous 50cl Volvic bottle, thanks to the materials used. The plant material – BioPET – is made from PET produced using some feedstocks manufactured from fermented and dehydrated sugarcane waste. The resulting bottle is 100% recyclable, says the firm.

The bio material is made in India, using sugarcane molasses from the country, spokesperson Felicity McKane told European Plastics News.

Volvic is also reducing the weight to 15g from 17g and the bottles, which are already on sale in France and Germany, are manufactured at the company’s own facilities in France.

McKane said that the company is not commenting on how the initiative will affect manufacturing costs but said that consumers will not pay more for their regular bottled water purchases.

Stéphane Cousté, director of the nature committee at Evian Volvic Worldwide, described the new design as a “real breakthrough”, which is part of plans to reduce the global carbon footprint of the Volvic brand by 40% by 2012.

Over the past 15 years, Volvic has reduced the weight of its plastic packaging by 30%, claims the firm.

Source: www.europeanplasticsnews.com

The Pentaform®SmartCycle® film product line has been extended to include two new Pentaform® SmartCycle® films. Pentaform®SmartCycle® TH-ES135R is designed for use in RF sealing. Pentaform®SmartCycle® TH-ES150K is heat sealable to water-based, adhesive-coated cardstock. Both rigid PET films are made from post-consumer recycled bottles.

Designed to contain a minimum of 35% or 50% post-consumer recycled content, these innovative Pentaform® SmartCycle® films are engineered to be drop-in alternatives for traditional polymers sealed by these methods while helping meet customers’ sustainable packaging goals. With over 20 years of  polyester production experience, Klöckner Pentaplast is a leading global producer of rigid polyester films and is the exclusive global supplier of SmartCycle® packaging films.

Ideal for clamshells, blisters, trays, and other thermoformed applications, Pentaform®
SmartCycle® films offer exceptional processability on standard thermoforming and form/fill/seal equipment. These films are certified to meet domestic packaging regulations and exceed California and Oregon regulations for rigid plastic packaging containers.

SmartCycle® PET films provide a thermoformed plastic packaging option to consumer product companies and retailers while building long-term value by helping them move toward their sustainable  packaging goals. Because the SmartCycle® logo can be included on the plastic containers using this film, consumers can make educated choices on their purchases.

The SmartCycle® process of making packaging from recycled plastic bottles saves energy, natural resources, and, ultimately, will spur collection of bottles. Consumers are now able to return their Pentaform® SmartCycle® packages to Klöckner Pentaplast for recycling; thereby forming a closed loop and adding continued life to SmartCycle® branded packages. This begins with the distinctive

SmartCycle® logo derived from the petaloid base found on most PET bottles. For the consumer, the unique identifying mark is informative, reinforcing the benefits of bottle and package recycling. A key goal of SmartCycle® is to help people feel good about their packaging choice by conveying the story of sustainable packaging through the entire packaging value chain – consumers, retailers, OEMs, converters, and resource recovery plants.
“Pentaform® SmartCycle® films were developed to be drop-in alternatives for traditional polymers sealed by RF methods or heat sealable to water-based, adhesive-coated cards while helping meet customers’ sustainable packaging goals,” notes Peter Gianniny, Klöckner Pentaplast’s thermoforming packaging films business manager for the Americas. “The expansion of our thermoform packaging film range to include these unique films continues to provide our customers with the broadest selection of high-performance films available in the global marketplace today.”

About the Klöckner Pentaplast Group
The Klöckner Pentaplast Group is the world’s leading producer of films for pharmaceutical, medical device, food, electronics, and general-purpose thermoform packaging, as well as printing and specialty applications. Founded in 1965 in Montabaur, Germany, Klöckner Pentaplast has grown from its initial facility to 19 current production operations in 11 countries.

Source: www.kpfilms.com

Kitchenware industry leader, Robinson Home Products – home of well-known brands such as Oneida, Sunbeam, Rubbermaid and Crock Pot – has tapped SABIC Innovative Plastics’ eco-engineered Valox iQ* resin for its new Green Street™ line of plastic kitchen utensils. A more sustainable, higher-performance material than traditional resins, Valox iQ resin utilizes upcycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) water bottles, diverting them from already bulging landfills. Equally important, this innovative product delivers the exceptional performance and quality that consumers demand in kitchenware, including heat and chemical resistance, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for food contact, and attractive appearance. SABIC Innovative Plastics’ investment in sustainable technologies helps companies like Robinson Home Products – a SABIC Innovative Plastics customer for over 30 years – achieve business success while promoting environmental protection.

“When we set out to create our new eco housewares line, we considered all aspects of the manufacturing cycle:  from choosing a nearby molder that generates its own power to manufacturing in the United States in order to reduce the environmental impact of shipping nearly 12,000 miles from Asia,” said Bob Skerker, chief executive officer, Robinson Home Products. “To find a sustainable thermoplastic for our Green Street line, we turned to long-time supplier SABIC Innovative Plastics to help us find the right solution. Valox iQ resin is now playing a critical role in enhancing the consumer appeal of these new utensils, helping us to strengthen our own eco-leadership position and grow our business.”

“Our versatile Valox iQ resins are adding value to the sustainability movement on a variety of fronts, from cutting fuel consumption and emissions in lightweight auto body panels to transforming discarded plastic into beautiful and useful housewares,” said Dennis VanPoppelen, product market leader Americas, SABIC Innovative Plastics. “We are investing in a wide range of other sustainability solutions to give customers even more options for reducing their products’ environmental impact without sacrificing performance or aesthetics. Needless to say, our customers are whole-heartedly embracing our efforts to deliver uncompromising performance combined with a lower environmental footprint.

A Greener Kitchen

Consumers are increasingly demanding products with lower environmental impact and Valox iQ resin is helping to address this need. The innovative resin is made from up to 60 percent upcycled post-consumer plastic waste, giving it a carbon footprint 50 to 85 percent lower than other engineered thermoplastics and extending the useful life of a PET bottle to 20 years. The Valox iQ resin product line includes Cradle-to-CradleSM certified grades, meaning that it supports a model that aims to eliminate waste entirely by circulating safe and healthful materials within closed-loop systems of continuous reuse.

In addition to its sustainability, Valox iQ resin offered Robinson the outstanding performance characteristics needed to support the company’s reputation for excellence. It withstands the demanding environment of the home kitchen, including exposure to cleansers, oils and grease, and high temperatures (up to 205 C/401 F) from cooking and automatic dishwashers. It can be custom colored and easily molded into unique and complex three-dimensional shapes, such as the distinctive branch design of the Green Street utensils.

Robinson’s Green Street products are now globally available.

For additional information on SABIC Innovative Plastics’ Valox iQ resin products, please go to www.sabic-ip.com.

About SABIC Innovative Plastics

SABIC Innovative Plastics is a leading, global supplier of engineering thermoplastics with a 75-year history of breakthrough solutions that solve its customers’ most pressing challenges. Today, SABIC Innovative Plastics is a multi-billion-dollar company with operations in more than 35 countries and approximately 9,000 employees worldwide. The company continues to lead the plastics industry with customer collaboration and continued investments in new polymer technologies, global application development, process technologies, and environmentally responsible solutions that serve diverse markets such as automotive, electronics, building & construction, transportation, and healthcare. The company’s extensive product portfolio includes thermoplastic resins, coatings, specialty compounds, film, and sheet. SABIC Innovative Plastics (www.sabic-ip.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), one of the world’s top six petrochemicals manufacturers.

Source: http://www.sabic-ip.com/

Energy savings of 77 per cent are claimed for the first US bottled spring water company to use 100 per cent recycled plastic in its bottles.

Colorado-based Eldorado Artesian Springs has developed the product over the past eight years using recycled plastic. Known as rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) the new bottles are made from plastic previously used as packaging. Virgin PET is made mainly from natural gas feedstock.

The company’s vice president marketing, Jeremy Martin told FoodProductionDaily.com: “Using our RPET bottles, we are able to lower our impact on the environment drastically by keeping plastic out of the waste stream and lowering our carbon footprint. By using 100 per cent RPET, we save 77 per cent of the energy required to produce a virgin PET bottle.”

Greenhouse gas emissions

Adopting 100 per cent RPET bottles will reduce the company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 58 per cent, according to NAPCOR (National Association for PET Container Resources).

After considering the use of corn-based plastics and biodegradable bottles, Eldorado chose to focus on RPET because it said this had fewer negative attributes then either of the other options.

Commenting on the bottle’s development potential, Martin said: “Right now, we are a very regional company but the largest seller of Colorado spring water. With our new RPET bottle we feel that we have the opportunity to expand our volume as well as our distribution area.”

Eldorado says the RPET used in its new bottle is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and meets the same safety standards as virgin plastic bottles.

The company also uses solar power in its manufacturing processes. Last September it installed a 100 kilowatt solar photovoltaic system that generates about half the firm’s energy needs.

Plant waste

About 96 per cent of its plant waste, including cardboard, paper and plastic, is recycled.

Meanwhile, last July two US food and beverage producers claimed to be the first in their respective sectors to switch to 100 per cent rPET packaging.

Naked Juice has said it would use 100 per cent post-consumer recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PCR PET) plastic in its Naked reNEWable bottle.

And Earthbound Farm said it was the first in the fresh-cut salad sector to manufacture plastic clamshell packing from rPET.

At the end of last year, Canadian company Naya Spring Water claimed to be the first bottled spring water company in the world to use 100 percent recycled plastic in its bottles.

Nearly 6bn pounds of PET packaging waste was generated in 2007, with only 23 per cent recycled into new products, according the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). More than 4.5bn pounds of PET was sent to landfill sites.

Source:  Food production Daily (http://www.foodproductiondaily.com)