Sidel’s new PET water bottle sheds some weight

Sidel believes when it comes to the bottled water market, it's all about the "right weight." The company recently introduced a new 0.5 liter PET bottle for still water called appropriately enough, RightWeight.

"Beverage producers are increasingly striving to unlock the value of a PET bottle across their entire supply chain, from concept to consumer," said Christophe Bunel, head of packaging care & development at Sidel. "To achieve this, a bottle must be lighter, of course, but also stay attractive, protect the beverage and ensure high consumer satisfaction. At Sidel we call this 'rightweighting'."

Bundel said that it's no longer about simply reducing the plastic content. The 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, which the company believes will result in a far better consumer experience for such a light bottle.

Compared with an average of 12 grams for commercial 0.5 liter water bottles available on the market today, the 7.95 gram bottle represents 34% less weight than the average commercial bottle, a Sidel spokesperson told PlasticsToday.

It also achieves 32% more top-load performance than the lightest commercial bottle, resulting in raw-material cost savings of up to EUR 1.75 million (USD 2.41 million) per year, according to Sidel data. The blowing pressure for the bottle is just 20 bars. In many cases the bottles can match the top-load performance of nitrogen-assisted ultra-lightweight bottles, without the use of nitrogen, leading to reportedly further cost and energy savings.

The company spokesperson said that for the past year, Sidel's packaging experts analyzed and tested many different bottle designs. They then carried out numerous computer simulations followed by real-world physical tests to achieve the right geometrical solution for an optimum balance between less weight and strong performance. A key success enabler was the complete redesign and optimization of the preform done internally by the Sidel team. Part of this new preform design is taking 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.

Sidel says that the new RightWeight bottle can therefore be adapted easily to existing production lines that use standard cap formats. Design elements can be adapted for existing or new commercial bottle designs as needed. 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.

Sidel believes this bottle is one of the lightest PET designs on the market.

While the product is available commercially, the company wouldn't comment on confidential work regarding specific brands.

"Our customers generally have been very interested in the Sidel RightWeight bottle concept," the spokesperson said. "We believe this reflects a general desire in the industry to achieve lightweight benefits without compromising on product quality and the consumer experience. Sidel RightWeight is more than just a concept bottle design. It's a holistic approach to creating the perfect package. Each product has its own RightWeight. Identifying it requires analysing the brand goals, supply chain conditions, industrial production capabilities and consumer expectations."