Düsseldorf, Germany — Japanese-based blow molding machine producer Nissei ASB Machine Co. Ltd. sees the future, and it is in packaging that can be reused and returned.
The company demonstrated the molding of a 1-liter, refillable PET bottle at its booth at K 2022, showing off the possibility of creating a returnable bottle that could open market possibilities in an age where sustainability concerns are again moving front and center. The bottle was molded using a double-blow heat-set process on an injection stretch machine.
While refillable and returnable bottles are a bit uncommon in the U.S. market, there is growing interest in a global market for the practice, said Nissei ASB Sales Manager Craig Arnold. Using the heat-set process, the bottles can make as many as 25 trips and weigh around 10 grams less than a typical refillable bottle, he said. The company demonstrated the process with sparkling water at the show, but Arnold said other applications also were possible.
The bottles could also be made from recycled PET while maintaining the number of trips the bottle could be used, Arnold said. The equipment can produce as many as 20 million returnable, refillable bottles annually.
"It's a growing market," he said. "We'd like to go to the next stage with this and think a returnable, refillable bottle might make sense."
Nissei ASB is no stranger to refillable bottles. It launched the first refillable PET bottle in the German market in 1989 for juices and soft drinks and has supplied the equipment in similar machines to more than 20 countries, according to the company's news release.
Compared with glass-based refillable bottles, the PET counterparts can be 90 percent lighter, on average. While the bottles weigh approximately twice as much as a single-use PET bottle of similar size, they consume less than 10 percent of PET material during their lifetimes vs. a single-use container.
The company also envisioned several other innovative packaging products in PET. At the show, the company showed an airless pump bottle with an outer layer of PET with an inner bag made of polypropylene. Extracting the product in an airless system is faster and more efficient than typical pumping units, as the system keeps all the oxygen in the bottle without releasing it during dispensing.
The product already is being used for cosmetics and lotions and in Japan has even had some use in soy sauce, Arnold said. "We think this has a future in other parts of the world," he said.
Nissei also debuted a bag-in-box system in a large package size with sharp edges and a handle. As product is released from the 20-liter container, the outer PET layer crumples and diminishes in size, making for easier storage and less space requirements. While the concept of a large bag-in-box is fairly new, the company has already sold eight to 12 systems in Japan, Arnold said. The transparent PET container uses a flexible material that can be used to hold a variety of liquids.
A major focus on Nissei's new technology is changing consumer behavior to accept larger-sized storage containers and more reusable options, the latter a theme at Nissei's booth. That would assist with sustainability efforts and decrease the amount of single-use packaging on the market.
The company launched a U.S. subsidiary, Nissei ASB Co., in Smyrna, Ga., five years ago and already is expanding capabilities at that facility, Arnold said. The Smyrna subsidiary is creating an enhanced technical service center that can conduct material trials and develop unit cavities, he said. The company is also offering demonstrations of its equipment at the center.
While the facility started with 30 people in 2017, it now is up to 45 employees serving the U.S. and Canadian markets, he said. Once the technical service center is implemented in Georgia, the company is expecting to offer similar centers in Germany and Singapore, Arnold said.
The Nagano, Japan-based company also is embracing the use of e-commerce, developing a new platform now in beta testing that will allow spare parts to be ordered online any time of day or night. Customers will be able to see the status of an order and order history, Arnold said.
"If it's 10 p.m. at night and a customer needs a part, they won't have to wait until the morning to contact us and place an order," he said.