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Origin Materials’ Tethered PET Caps Take OffOrigin Materials’ Tethered PET Caps Take Off
The company shares details and video of new PET and rPET cap-making equipment and announces $100M contract with first customer.
3 Min Read
Tethered design locks the opened PET cap threads with the bottle neck threads. ORIGIN MATERIALS VIA BUSINESS WIRE, Rick Lingle via Canva
At a Glance
- PET bottles with standard or tethered PET or rPET caps are 100% recyclable.
- First signed caps deal is worth $100 million.
- Origin is working with manufacturing partners in Europe and the US to produce the caps.
Origin Materials is moving briskly with its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) cap and closure technology, which can be used to manufacture tethered or standard caps and enables PET bottle-to-bottle recycling.
The company, based in West Sacramento, CA, recently introduced the Origin CapFormer System; welcomed its first signed customer for PET caps in a multiyear deal worth $100 million; and announced partnerships with packaging manufacturers in both the US and Europe.
Origin positions its CapFormer System as the first commercial-scale manufacturing equipment for PET caps and closures and notes that the system successfully completed a FAT, or Factory Acceptance Test.
The equipment boasts a combination of thermoforming, slit-and-fold technology, and proprietary design features. Virgin or recycled PET (pellet or flake) can be used to produce caps. The first Origin CapFormer System has already made several million PET caps using recycled PET.
Origin characterizes the system as delivering “ultra high-speed cap production throughput” with greater than 98% manufacturing efficiency but does not disclose specific line speeds.
Packaging applications for the PET caps and closures will include not only beverage bottles but also packaging for food, home goods, and medical products.
Origin’s PCO 1881-compatible caps will be available starting in the fourth quarter of 2024, with PCO 1881-compatible tethered caps and other closure styles to follow.
The company’s ability to produce PET tethered caps supports sustainability and bottle-to-bottle circularity — monomaterial PET bottles with tethered caps are readily recyclable — as well as regulatory preparedness.
The European Union’s directive on single-use plastics, which mandates that plastic caps and lids stay attached to plastic beverage containers with a capacity of up to three liters, took effect in July 2024.
Industry watchers expect other countries and regions, including the United States, to adopt a similar regulation eventually.
$100 million caps deal.
Origin has also announced its first customer, an unnamed entity that signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to buy more than $100 million worth of PET caps during an initial two-year term. Origin expects to deliver multiple billions of caps to the customer in the course of the next several years.
To support anticipated demand for its PET caps, Origin has entered into mass-production partnerships with Switzerland-based Bachmann Group and Michigan-based Reed City Group. Bachmann is a packaging production and logistics company, and Reed City Group is an injection-mold builder, hydraulic press maker, and injection molder.
Origin is also negotiating licensing agreements for its technology. Image courtesy of Origin Materials.
In each case, Origin will operate PET cap production lines together with the partner. The Bachmann lines are well situated to serve the European market, and Reed City is positioned to supply US customers as demand grows.
“During July, in Germany and Switzerland we tested all manufacturing line subsystems at full speed, and we are pleased with the system’s performance,” said Rich Riley, Origin’s co-chief executive officer, in a prepared statement.
In addition to developing manufacturing partnerships, Origin is negotiating licensing agreements. “We anticipate that licensing our technology, in addition to selling caps that we produce with our world-class manufacturing partners, will drive explosive growth for our PET caps business,” Riley said.
Caps and closures market to hit $85 billion by 2026.
The tethered technology addresses an unsustainable problem for what is an expanding market — standard untethered caps can create litter, represent a potential choking hazard, and are problematic for recyclers. MarketsandMarkets reports that the global caps and closures market was worth $65 billion in 2021, with projected market value of $85 billion by 2026; the report says that increased demand for bottled water is expected to drive market growth.
Read more about Origin’s tethered caps at PlasticsToday.
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