As managing editor of The Consumerist blog has an interesting photo, and an active comment section, with a post today about the PLA bottle used by Primo Water Corp.
Titled "The incredible shrinking water bottle," the blog has a photo of two Primo bottles, one that apparently shrunk to half its regular size after being left in a car in the hot Houston sun. The post concludes: "Degradable bottles seem like a good idea, we just don't want them degrading inside of our cars."
I'm not too alarmed about half-empty PLA bottles shrinking in my car. But I'm still not convinced that water bottles are the best target market for PLA. It would be a much better idea to get people to recycle their PET bottles instead. A 10 cent deposit on water bottles would work wonders.
Comments (3)
I can't see the water bottle having enough stress in it to be able to shrink when having water inside(incompressible) or even air(not so much). Squeeze a water bottle with the lid screwed on, it can't make it pop with a slow squeeze. Only "danger" I see with this is if someone screws the lid on a bottle filled with air and it shrinks down and creates pressure inside.
How much pressure is inside a shaken can of soda?
Remedy by attaching the lid to the bottle so it can't fly off and hit people in the face when they are about to enjoy a nice cold, um, hot beverage, er, can of air.
Posted by Chris | July 24, 2008 10:31 AM
Posted on July 24, 2008 10:31
I think the previous post overestimates the pressure that's likely to build up in the bottle once it softens - the driving force for the shrinkage will only be frozen-in stress post blowing so you're not likely to see exploding bottles. The article does highlight a PLA weakness, however. PLA packaging has to be stored below 35 degC or so. That can mean air conditioned warehousing and transport and that energy has to be factored into any emission calculation. Not just a PLA problem, though. Same thing applies for shrink sleeves.
Posted by Chris | July 24, 2008 5:49 PM
Posted on July 24, 2008 17:49
If we were to make the inaccurate assumption that CO2 is a pollutant, then wouldn't it be better to leave the carbon locked up in the PET rather than have it liberated by the degradation of PLA?
Posted by Bruce | July 25, 2008 9:51 AM
Posted on July 25, 2008 09:51