An Israeli blow molder has commercialized juice bottles made from a blend of PET and polyethylene naphthalate resins.
Log Plastic Products Co. Ltd. in Ashdot Ya'acov, Israel, will exhibit the bottles at Plasto-Ispack '97, scheduled for Sept. 15-18 in Tel Aviv.
Log officials claim the bottle is the first hot-fill PET/PEN blend container of its kind. To be cost efficient, the bottle contains very little PEN, according to David Steinberg, project manager of Log.
``It's not anywhere close to 50-50,'' Steinberg said, but he would not disclose the PET-PEN ratio.
The bottle is meant to withstand hot temperatures like glass, but is lighter and takes up less space. Log's bottle is more expensive to produce than its glass counterpart, Steinberg said.
Shell Chemical Co. of Houston supplies its Hipertuf resin for the bottle, and is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to use the material in food-contact applications in the United States.
Log also plans to produce a baby bottle with a plastic mechanism that will reduce the number of air bubbles in the formula. The bottle already is patented in the United States and is being test marketed in Wal-Mart stores.
The company also supplies bottles to customers such as Revlon and L'Oreal.
Log said it has plants in Europe, and plans to build a second Russian facility, but details were not disclosed.
The firm reported annual sales of $15 million with export sales of $200,000.
