Collaborative effort delivers innovative closures born ready to meet the new EU single-use plastics directive
UNITED CAPS, an international manufacturer of caps and closures, and LyondellBasell, one of the world’s largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies, today announced that they will be displaying the results of an extensive collaborative effort to respond to EU Directive 2019/904 on single-use plastics that requires beverage bottles to have closures tethered to the bottle for proper disposal, reducing the risk of plastic items dispersing into the environment.
Following the publication in May of 2018 by the EU Commission of a proposal for requiring tethered closures for single use plastics (SUP), UNITED CAPS spearheaded the Alliance for Closure Tethering (ACT) to bring together segment leaders in the packaging industry to conduct an impact assessment of various tethering solutions on existing neck finishes and to determine finishing changes that might be required.
“This move is in line with our long-held principles of openness and transparency and our firmly held belief that our closures should differentiate today and sustain tomorrow. We are pleased that these efforts are delivering results that will be on display at the K 2019 in Hall 8a D12 on the stand of our partner, LyondellBasell”, said Benoit Henckes, CEO UNITED CAPS. “Tethered closures are expected to be pivotal in changing public attitudes towards the use of single-use plastic as well as littering. But they do present challenges for the industry, specifically around cost of closures and the ease with which they can be integrated into the production process, including the potential need for retooling bottling machines,” Henckes added. “That is why we initiated ACT – to support better integration into the supply chain with a united, rather than standalone, solution. We are looking forward to introducing the outcome of this collaboration to industry stakeholders at K 2019.”
The LyondellBasell grades Purell GC 7260G and Hostalen 5231H are part of the new tethered closure solutions developed to comply with the new directive. Purell GC 7260G is the benchmark grade for still beverage closures featuring excellent organoleptic properties. Hostalen 5231H is an innovative grade for light weight closures that features very high stress cracking resistance thanks to LyondellBasell’s innovative catalyst technology. The red color of the closure was obtained using LyondellBasell’s Polybatch Color Masterbatch.
“We are excited to have contributed together with UNITED CAPS to designing a new packaging solution that complies with the EU plastic strategy”, stated Gianluca Brescia, Director Polyethylene Europe at LyondellBasell. “Responsibly managing the disposal of plastics is important, which is why LyondellBasell has been one of the driving forces in this value chain collaboration initiative. Our innovation capabilities have helped to make this project a success.” K 2019, the world’s leading trade fair for the plastics and rubber industry, is scheduled for 16 to 23 October at Messe Düsseldorf in Germany.
www.unitedcaps.com