US-based consumer goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G) has announced the availability of Oral-B manual toothbrush made with Octal Petrochemicals' recyclable DPET (direct PET) sheet, as part of its move to help eliminate all uses of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in its packaging.
Earlier, the company used PVC for its toothbrush packaging, which currently represents less than 1.5% of P&G's total use of its plastic packaging materials, plasticstoday.com reported.
Octal Petrochemicals COO Joe Barenberg said DPET serves as a good solution due to its process for production of PET sheet, which provides a substantially lower carbon footprint than traditional PET.
The sheet uses 67% less electricity compared to traditional plants and can run on thermoforming equipment already being used for PVC, high impact polystyrene sheets (HIPS), and oriented polystyrene (OPS) with only minor modifications of hardware and processing parameters.
Octal maximises roll-to-roll uniformity in every batch for DPET through software programmes, process control technology and achieves a lower caliper variation of 1% enabling thermoformers to down-gauge, thereby using less overall material in the final tray.
P&G said it will consider DPET, as well as other variants of PET, in evaluating packaging options that protect the product through the distribution network while balancing the sustainability and environmental needs.
As part of its long-term environmental sustainability vision, the company plans to use 100% renewable or recycled materials for all products and packaging, and have zero consumer and manufacturing waste go to landfills.
