Plastic bottles impact the glass bottle market
Plastic bottles impact the glass bottle market
As a traditional form of packaging, glass is favored by high-end products. But in the face of reality, plastic seems to be gaining popularity out of cost. Red wine is one example of the expanding range of plastic applications and the gradual extension of the traditional glass bottle packaging.
Not long ago, a wine producer in France introduced a red wine product in the United States that was packaged in lile prisma. The packing capacity is 1L, recyclable and easy to carry. Compared with traditional glass packaging, the packaging can save up to 90 percent of the cost. Because of its light weight, transportation costs are greatly reduced. This example shows that soft packaging is gradually penetrating into the field of traditional hard packing and poses a certain threat to hard packing. Of course, if you really want to replace hard packaging, there's a long way to go for soft packaging, especially in the beverage industry. However, industry insiders are aware of the inevitable trend that plastic is gradually replacing glass and metal status.
Threats from plastics
Plastic hard packing has three advantages: strong, light and low cost. If you add the transparency, you'll be able to match the glass. In fact, most of the condiments originally packaged in glass bottles have been converted to PET bottles. Not only that, plastic hard packaging is widely used in vegetable oils, bottled water and other products. Transparency is a very important feature, and consumers want to see the quality of content, especially vegetable oil products.
The most typical example of plastic hard packing is a thin plastic bottle that accounts for almost half of all plastic packaging on the market, ranging from vegetable oil to bottled water. The main reason for the popularity of thin-walled plastic bottles is low cost. Manufacturers meet consumer demand for prices by using this plastic bottle.
There are many plastic packaging, for example: plastic packaging can be designed with multi-layer structure, and can even add aluminum foil layer, which can enrich the function of single package. But this does not fit the 3R principle, especially the last one, the recycle.
Plastic bottled beer
How to fill the oxygen sensitive beverage with transparent plastic bottle is the key point of technology research and development. The PET bottle is only 1/7 of the weight of a glass bottle and is not broken. It has been a huge success in soft-drink packaging, especially 2-3l bottles. In recent years, small, single - and one-person drinks have also slowly given up on the original glass or tin packaging, instead using PET bottles.
Beer, however, is struggling to change from glass to PET. The bottle must have a strong barrier to carbon dioxide and oxygen, and must be transparent and solid. The unit cost of a PET bottle is twice as much as a regular glass bottle, and it has a high breathability, especially oxygen and carbon dioxide. Beer's shelf life depends on the maximum amount of time it can be kept, and the infiltration of oxygen directly affects the taste of the beer. In addition, the decrease in carbonation will also lead to changes in beer taste. Current research focuses on how to improve the barrier properties of plastic bottles to oxygen and carbon dioxide, and how to extend the shelf life of plastic bottles. Another big obstacle is the way beer is filled. Currently 80% of the world's beer is pasteurized pasteurized. The temperature of this process is not necessarily acceptable to the PET bottle.
There are very limited types of bottles of beer that can be used in plastic bottles, and there are only small beer sizes that can be seen in sports competitions. Of course, technology developers won't throw in the towel before a challenge. They have worked hard to roll out a number of plastic bottles of beer to meet the demands of producers and consumers. However, in these existing programmes, there is not a single set of requirements that can fully meet the market, but each has its own advantages.
Different products, different markets require different solutions, and the product is often not the technology, but the market. The barrier coating technology extends the shelf life, improves the oxygen barrier performance, and the active multi-layer bottle has high processing flexibility and oxygen barrier performance, but the shelf life is shorter.
In addition, no matter how strong the oxygen barrier of the bottle, the sealing is still a big problem. For small volume bottles, the oxygen that seeps through the mouth of the bottle has a great influence on the taste of beer, so all the efforts to block it are in vain. There are metal crown covers, plastic cover and aluminum screw cap. Plastic bottles of beer need a full package of bottle and bottle caps, so the high-barrier bottle cap needs to be developed.
For the time being, glass bottles will still be available for a while, and the future of plastic bottles is optimistic. With the efforts of r&d personnel and the continuous improvement of technology, the plastic bottled beer will have a good development prospect.
The development of plastic
The properties of plastic determine that it is not renewable, even in plastic hard packing. At present, there are various innovative technologies and material applications in plastic hard packing, including blow molding, injection molding, extrusion, hot forming and vacuum forming.
PP is a kind of raw material of plastic hard packing which is suitable for various processing techniques and applications. It can be used to process various sizes of bottles, pipes, drums, cans. PP can be used for packaging food and industrial chemicals. PP materials can be used to pack fresh, refrigerated or frozen foods, such as salads and snack foods. The most commonly used plastic bottle material is PE, widely used in carbonated beverages, bottled water, juice, personal care products.
With the rise of plastic hard packaging, the various challenges resulting from it have kept technicians working day and night. For now, they need to find a complete solution to plastic bottles of beer, including gas-seeping solutions and plastic bottles designed to fit the needs of beer consumers. Carbonated drinks have also encountered many problems in the packaging of plastic bottles. Let's wait and see these difficult points. Qianlong brand huaihai district news release center.
