Sidel has introduced RightWeight, a new 500ml PET bottle for still water said to bring lightweighting advantages throughout the supply chain while “maintaining or increasing” bottle performance.
Weighing just 7.95 grams, RightWeight offers top-load performance of 33kg without nitrogen dosing, using standard 26/22 caps.
According to Switzerland-based Sidel, RightWeight represents 34% less weight than the 12-gram average for commercial 500ml plastic water bottles, while achieving 32% greater top-load performance than the lightest commercial bottle.
The company, part of the Tetra Laval group, estimates use of the new bottle could lead to raw-material cost savings of up to €1.75 million per year.
The RightWeight bottle’s increased resistance helps eliminate the ‘over squeeze’ issue often experienced by end consumers when using ultra-light bottles, which can result in the unintentional spillage of contents.
RightWeight is also “more likely” to travel across the supply chain and retain its original appearance when placed on a supermarket shelf, the company says.
“It's no longer about simply reducing the plastic content,” says Christophe Bunel, Sidel’s head of packaging care & development.
“Our new RightWeight bottle concept is designed to reduce bottle weight, and also save energy during production, improve bottle performance across the supply chain, without compromising on product quality, and result in a far better consumer experience for such a light bottle.”
With a blowing pressure of just 20 bars in manufacture, the RightWeight bottle can in many cases match the top-load performance of nitrogen-assisted ultra-lightweight bottles, leading to further cost and energy savings.
A new preform design by Sidel’s in-house team is said to be an evolution of the standard 26/22 neck finish, which has been re-designed to save an extra 15% of weight while maintaining compatibility with existing standard 26/22 caps.
The new RightWeight bottle can therefore be adapted easily to existing production lines that use standard cap formats, while design elements can be adapted for existing or new commercial bottle designs as required.
The bottle can be used for all Sidel PET packaging solutions and output speeds for still water, including the new Sidel Matrix system for liquid packaging.
