Breakthrough will lead to 500-ton reduction in PET usage over the next five years
Plastipak, a global leader in the design, manufacturing and recycling of plastic containers, announced today the creation of the lightest preform solution for a 20 liter stackable container in the European market, which will eliminate around 200 tons of CO2 emissions each year.
“At Plastipak, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. Our research and development team has been tirelessly searching for effective solutions to reduce our carbon footprint along every step of the supply chain,” said Filip Petrovic, the business development manager for Plastipak Europe. “Creating light-weight solutions that require fewer raw materials and carbon emissions to produce is just one of the many ways we safeguard the planet for future generations.”
Plastipak engineered this innovative packaging solution to require significantly less PET per container, leading to a 500-ton reduction in PET usage annually compared to the original 500g preform.
Understanding The Vision Annual Carbon
Savings: Reducing from 500g to 375g
Based on 4m Blown Bottles including End of Life
270,102,498 smartphones charged
Carbon sequestered by 36,648 tree seedlings grown for 10 years
9,149,345 kilometres driven by an average passenger car
The new stackable container weighs only 375 grams, beating Plastipak’s previous record of 390 grams, and outpacing the industry standard — a 480-gram container.
Plastipak originally developed a 500 gram preform to serve its client’s needs more than a decade ago. As part of a broader plan to increase sustainability across the supply chain, Plastipak and PVG Liquids began to refine the product and search for ways to reduce the material used without compromising the product’s utility and quality. A breakthrough in the geometric design of the package allowed the company to create a 375-gram package in April.
The best-in-class preform requires low-crystallinity resin to guarantee the high quality of the final product, which is produced at Plastipak’s Verbania, Italy, plant. In order to prevent excess emissions from transporting the resin to other facilities, the Verbania plant houses the entire production process for these preforms. Additionally, the solution’s advanced geometric design makes the preform a strong candidate for post-consumer resin. Plastipak has already successfully created the 375-gram preform using 10% recycled PET. Preform itself is also a great candidate for Plastipak’s low environmental impact resin, PPKNatura, developed by leveraging LanzaTech’s Carbon Capture and Transformation technology, which significantly reduces carbon footprint and fossil usage of the final packaging, thus contributing to the partner’s scope 3 emissions reductions.
Although Plastipak originally created the lightweight solution in partnership with PVG Liquids to use as a container for combustible fluids, the new preform can be broadly used across multiple industries. For example, because the lightweight preform is built using food-grade PET and has a 63 mm neck finish, the packaging is well-suited for use in industrial kitchens such as for storing olive oil. Plastipak is willing and able to accommodate a variety of client packaging needs for similar lightweight solutions for organizations looking to reduce their environmental impact.