Chicago — The market for plastic caps and closures is still growing, driven by changing population demographics, new technology and trends like improved packaging sustainability.
The sector is an important one for Dow Chemical Co., which launched a new brand for its portfolio of polyethylene resins for cap, closure and fitment applications at the Plastics Caps & Closures conference in Chicago.
The brand is called Evercap, and it includes a wide variety of PE resins, plus some under development.
“Evercap is the new portfolio of the right resins with the right properties for these new demanding closure applications that are constantly being developed,” said John Sugden, senior research scientist with Midland, Mich.-based Dow.
Sugden said Dow offers a variety of catalyst and manufacturing technologies for making a diverse mix of high, low and linear low density PE resins.
“It can be [for] anything from food and beverage to household industrial chemicals,” he said. “Each one of those applications requires their own set of resin properties, whether that is stiffness and toughness like the high density polyethylene; whether that be [on] a fitment that has to have a pull tab, so you may want to look at a low density that has tearable properties, so the actual membrane will tear and the ring won't break away.”
Dow also will highlight the Evercap brand at the K show, Oct. 19-26 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The company cited research by Freedonia Group showing that U.S. demand for plastic caps and closures will grow 4.2 percent annually to $11.8 billion in 2020, thanks to the growing use of dispensing and child-resistant closures.
