PET bottles in the circular economy

The role of PET bottles in the circular economy

Packaging sustainability is a key issue, in particular for the beverage industry, in which more and more questions have been raised about the material to be used for safe packaging, with limited impact on the environment.

SMI offers a wide range of rotary stretch-blow moulders available in stand-alone or ECOBLOC® version integrated with filling and capping modules for the production of PET and r-PET containers up to 36,800 bottles/hour.

Recent studies have shown the benefits arising from the use of plastic bottles, since this solution is unbreakable, safe, with great barrier properties, lightweight and above all recyclable! In comparison with other packaging materials, such as glass or aluminium, PET has a good environmental profile, mainly thanks to its lightness that translates into less material to produce, less material to dispose of, less energy used to manufacture it and less fuel used for transporting packed products. Thanks to its recyclability and its great weight-capacity ratio, many producers of mineral waters and soft drinks promote and re-evaluate PET and r-PET as convenient and win-win solutions from the environmental sustainability point of view.

R-PET or lightweight bottles?

Manufacture them with SMI stretch-blow moulders

Ideal system for producing PET and r-PET bottles

The use of r-PET (recycled PET) for manufacturing new bottles is the core of the concept of circular economy, that consists of collecting materials after they have been used and processing them, so that they can be reused or recycled. Every time a PET container is recycled, its oil reserve is recovered and reused, eliminating the waste and reducing the packaging environmental impact, provided that efficient systems for managing waste and recycling exist.

Producing even lighter bottles

Another strategy that contributes to the environmental protection is based on the design of even lighter PET containers, that allow to save on plastics and that, indeed, fully comply with the environmental policy of most manufacturers of beverages.

SMI solution for the “green factory”

The rotary, compact, efficient and ergonomic stretch-blow moulders from the EBS ERGON range perfectly meet these eco-friendly strategies and the new manufacturing paradigms of “smart & green factory”

Moreover, SMI designs containers and manufactures moulds.

Thanks to a team of highly specialized engineers and latest generation tools, SMI is able to design, develop and virtually prototype a wide range of packaging solutions in rPET and PET, according to the customers' specific requirements.

If you want to find out further advantages of the EBS ERGON stretch-blow moulders or ECOBLOC® ERGON stretch-blow moulding, filling and capping integrated systems, we invite you to contact our sales department or visit our website.

Marketing Department

SMI S.p.A.

E-mail: info@smigroup.it