Origin Materials Inc. working with a Michigan company to begin U.S. production of PET bottle caps later this year.
The West Sacramento, Calif.-based company is the first out of the gate to create a PET closure for PET bottles, a long-sought breakthrough expected to simplify the recycling process by using a single resin.
Striking a deal with injection molder Reed City Group in Reed City, Mich., means Origin now has manufacturing agreements in both Europe and the United States to provide PET caps to the marketplace.
"It's nice to have multiple potential suppliers to work with there, both for us and for our customers. And so we're pretty excited about it. I think Reed City has really demonstrated that they know what they're doing," said John Bissell co-founder and CEO at Origin.
"Anytime you're bringing a new manufacturing process or even a modified manufacturing process in, you want to work with people that really know what they're doing and they've impressed us. I think it's just another step on the journey to bringing large scale PET caps to the market, which is something that nobody has done before," he said.
Origin is keeping certain manufacturing details close to the vest as it works to become the first to commercialize PET closures for both carbonated and still drinks.
PET caps are seen as an ultimate solution for making life easier for recyclers, who currently must separate PET bottle resin from high density polyethylene or polypropylene cap resin. PET sinks when sent through a water tank while HDPE and PP float, allowing recyclers to separate the resins. PET bottles and caps would not need to undergo that separation portion of recycling process.
Reed City Group initially will include one manufacturing line at one of the company's two locations in Reed City, Bissell said.
"Our company has a long-standing commitment to innovation and bringing our two companies together to fulfill the market needs of sustainable products is a natural fit," Reed City Group CEO Guy Boitos said in a statement.
Along with the Michigan plans, Origin unveiled a plan in May to work with Bachmann Group of Hochdorf, Switzerland, to produce PET caps for the European market. With that market in mind, Origin also has just unveiled a tethered cap design to comply with new European regulations.
Origin first considered entering the PET caps market as a way to utilize output from the company's wood residue processing site in Sarnia, Ontario. There, the company processes wood to create chemical intermediaries, including one the company thought would be useful to modify PET for closure use. But Origin ultimately developed a cap-making method that does not require PET modification.
The issue with using PET for both bottles and closures has centered around creating an effective seal between the two portions of the container using a like material. Origin says the company has solved that problem through design, eliminating the need to use the softer HDPE or PP resins to achieve a seal. "It turns out we didn't need to modify the polymer at all," he said.
Origin's approach allows the company to use virgin, recycled and bio-based PET to create new caps.
Both Origin and Reed City will supply equipment to the new line, but Bissell was hesitant to provide too many details as the company heads toward production. "What made Reed City attractive to us is that they have a lot of skills and capabilities," the CEO said.
Once production does begin, Origin expects demand to outstrip supply for some time.
"We've got pretty strong demand and interest," Bissell said. "We haven't announced any contracts yet. That doesn't mean we won't announce contracts. But we feel quite comfortable at this point that there's going to be more demand than we can supply initially, at the very least, and probably for quite some time."
Bissell said the company eventually will provide additional detail about the PET caps work, but not yet.
"We expect that we'll end up talking about this in some more detail at some point. But let's get it up. Let's get it running," he said. "Let's start supplying caps to people. Maybe get a couple of lines going. And then we'll tell people what we're doing."
Origin has been working on creating a PET cap for about three years, but it just began speaking publicly about the work a year ago.
Origin wants to concentrate on both Europe and the United States for now, Bissell said, as there is plenty of opportunity in those markets. "There's not really a reason to increase a lot of complexity, operational complexity, quickly. So for now, I think, focus on those two areas," he said.