It can also reduce the amount of PET material needed to produce the finished bottle, allowing for reduced wall thickness for an optimum strength-to-weight ratio.
According to Sidel, the result is a bottle that uses less raw materials and therefore weighs less, requiring less energy to produce, yet delivering better pallet stability and improved bottle integrity throughout the entire supply chain.
Sidel StarLite is said to do all of this without compromising on the safety, hygiene or the integrity of the beverage contained within the bottle.
Several Sidel customers have trialled the StarLite CSD bottle base and have already reported favourable results, including significant improvements in resistance to stress cracking.
Under the test protocol of the International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT), the new base lasted 30% longer for 0.5 litre bottles, 50% longer for 1.5 litre bottles and 60% longer for 2.0 litre bottles. The base successfully completed the ISBT 24-hour creeping test under 45°C conditions, compared with 38°C required under standard testing.
Base weights can be reduced by up to 20% for 0.5 litre bottles (from 5g average to 4g), 19% for 1.5 litre (from 9g to 7.3g) and 17% for 2 litres (from 12g to 10g). Under controlled conditions, the new CSD base can be blown using as little as only 16 bars of air pressure compared to the 25 bars average for 0.5 litre bottles. The 1.5 litre bottles can be blown with as little as 18 bars compared to the 26 bars average, and 2 litre bottles with only 20 bars compared to the previous 28-30 bars average.
The award-winning StarLite base design was originally developed for non-carbonated drinks where the bottles are under less pressure. The still drinks version was launched in 2013, and that design won the ‘Best Environmental Sustainability Initiative’ category at the 2013 Global Bottled Water Awards. Looking to the potential in CSD, Sidel’s packaging experts took the principles adopted in the still drinks base, analysing different base designs to achieve the optimum performance and strength for CSD products.
The new design includes four key patents covering the slopes, ridges and truncations of the bottle base. The base can be incorporated into existing bottle designs by Sidel’s packaging engineering team.
