Following the entry into force of the EU tethered caps law this July, California-based Origin Materials has unveiled its new connected closure design made from 100% PET.
PET bottles have achieved one of the highest recycling rates in the industry. Now that European countries are collecting bottles with their caps attached, mono-material designs will further simplify recycling. Replacing PP or PE caps with PET would eliminate the need to remove those materials from the PET bottle recycling stream.
“Our patent-pending tethered cap design is simple, clever, and user-friendly,” said John Bissell, Origin Co-Founder and Co-CEO. “We use the threads of the PET cap and bottle to lock the cap into place, angled away from the mouth, not toward it. We are combining the performance and sustainability advantages of our PET caps – recyclability, shelf-life extension, lightweighting, ability to use recycled PET, and enablement of mono-material packaging – with an excellent user experience. We have already seen extremely strong interest in this welcome addition to our PET cap product line.”
The design of tethered caps is crucial to consumer satisfaction and adoption. Many consumers have complained about designs where the cap hits their faces. Origin seems to be using a shift cap design, where the cap is tucked away on the container after opening, ensuring it is angled away from consumers’ mouths.
The tethered cap legislation, part of the Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD), requires that single-use 3-litre and smaller beverage containers place on the EU market have their caps attached during the products’ intended use and storage. Combined with the recycling targets of the PPWR, the demand for easily recyclable tethered closures is likely to become substantial in the coming years.
“The EU Single-Use Plastic Directive, which came into effect last month, mandates that caps stay connected to bottles throughout the European Union,” said Bissell. “Our PET cap innovations are perfectly suited for that regulatory environment — and frankly any environment. We expect many other regions to introduce their own tethered beverage cap requirements as well, following the example of the EU. With our leading PET cap technology and manufacturing systems, we are extremely well positioned to address a $65 billion caps and closures market that consumes billions upon billions of caps per year which today cannot be recycled into new caps, only downcycled,” he added.
Origin said the standard caps will be commercially available in the fourth quarter of 2024, followed by the tethered caps.
The company’s caps can be made with any type of PET plastic: virgin PET, recycled PET (rPET), or bio-based PET.
In terms of material properties, PET also offers benefits over the use of conventional polyolefin materials, providing a better oxygen and CO2 barrier than either HDPE and PP.