Sidel, a key player in the blowing and PET packaging sector, has introduced StarLITE®R, a 100% rPET bottle aimed at helping carbonated soft drink (CSD) packaging producers promote material circularity. This addition to Sidel’s signature StarLITE® family addresses the complexities associated with incorporating recycled content.
Sidel brings a wealth of experience in the blowing and PET packaging sector, with over 45 years of expertise. Laurent Naveau, Packaging Innovator Leader at Sidel, highlights the challenges posed by rPET resin in the packaging industry, saying, “The characteristics of rPET are impacted by several factors. Firstly, by seasonality. Consumption habits fluctuate over the course of the year impacting the product category mix. And secondly, by different PET collection models which means that post-consumer PET material bales will vary from region-to-region and even country-to-country. The recycling process and equipment used will also influence PET resin. All these factors can pose new challenges for manufacturers looking to produce bottles with rPET content.”
Apart from common CSD bottle manufacturing challenges like stress cracking, roll out, and bursting during blowing, processing rPET demands higher temperatures. As a result, manufacturers may face difficulties in controlling the stretching and distribution of rPET material during the bottle-making process. Traditionally, increased variability in rPET resin results in a narrower process window and lower bottle quality.
However, Sidel’s innovative StarLITE®R base utilizes advanced technologies to expand the process window, making rPET bottle production more efficient. The StarLITE®R design simplifies the blowing process by allowing a broader range of parameter settings on the blower, ultimately resulting in higher-quality bottles.
To create a high-performing rPET bottle base, StarLITE®R incorporates an optimized mould base profile and an advanced stretch rod end design. The new mould base profile ensures precise material distribution through advanced stretching and provides high base clearance for optimal stability. The advanced stretch rod end design enhances preform end-cap material stretching and guarantees accurate injection gate centering on the bottle. Additionally, the combination of grooves and venting holes enables the formation of high-precision base feet.
The new bottle solution also employs both external and internal bottle base cooling for maintaining an ideal shape. Externally, a mould base cooling circuit targets the warmer bottle base areas, while internally, a hollow-stretch rod is used, requiring no additional air supply.
Laurent Naveau notes, “StarLITE®R is designed to offer carbonated soft drink manufacturers the opportunity to embrace rPET. Sidel’s new design bottle base achieves greater protection against deformation, increased resistance to bursting, and optimum stability, while ensuring product quality.”
This innovative bottle can be seamlessly integrated into existing production lines and adapted to fit current bottle designs, leveraging Sidel’s extensive expertise. It is compatible with Sidel’s well-known blow moulders, EvoBLOW, Universal, and Series 2, and is suitable for high-speed production.
In terms of sustainability, a lifecycle analysis reveals that PET already boasts the best carbon footprint among all available packaging materials and is the sole food-grade, bottle-to-bottle plastic resin. Achieving full circularity at scale will further enhance PET’s sustainability, with rPET reducing environmental impact up to four times more than virgin material.