PTI president says innovation in packaging, materials will come

Plastic Technologies Inc. had just commissioned a blow molding machine for its prototype lab as an interesting invitation popped up from Coca-Cola.

The carbonated soft drink (CSD) maker wanted to produce its first contoured plastic bottle in the U.S. and the Holland, Ohio-based PTI used its new equipment to create some samples.

It was a tall order.

The glass Coke bottle patented in 1915 was a cultural icon with its appealing cocoa-pod shape, embossed script logo and design that met two distinct specifications. The bottle had to be recognizable when touched in the dark or broken into pieces.

The evolution of the bottle to plastic in the U.S. was a big deal — and a classic career memory for PTI President Scott Steele.

"Eventually the company decided on a 20-ounce size and design, which became one of the most successful PET packages in history," Steele said in an email of the Coke bottle launched in 1994.

"Today, still there are billions of single-serve shaped CSD bottles produced annually, which in my opinion started in the PTI laboratory in Toledo, Ohio, and I was lucky enough to be the project engineer who supported a massive effort to commercialize it."

How did he get so lucky?

Steele chalks up his first job in the industry to a college professor who worked as a consultant for Perrysburg, Ohio-based Owens-Illinois Inc. The professor encouraged chemical engineering students to check out the company's growing plastics division. Steele did and he became a project engineer for a development team in the plastic beverage operations.

"I joined the group that pioneered plastic beverage bottles in the mid-1970s," said Steele, who earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Toledo in 1979 and became a member of the Society of Plastics Engineers that year.

"My supervisor at O-I insisted I join to start learning more about plastics and materials other than PET," he said.

Steele went on to author 11 U.S. and international patents and has held numerous positions with SPE, including his current post as the finance chairman of the board of directors. He joined PTI in 1987 as one of its first employees and became president in 2012.

During his career, the plastics industry contracted in size, grew more competitive and became "highly refined, much more professional than when I started," Steele said.

It can be just as exciting, too, particularly when it comes to bio-derived materials, Steele added, and "not just the drop-in polymers that are trying to replace PET and HDPE, but some new molecules like PEF that have properties that are superior to the materials we have used in the past."

Made from a chemical building block of plant-based industrial sugar, polyethylenefuranoate (PEF) has superior barrier and tensile strength properties for food packaging film and plastic bottles, and it is recyclable. Several major companies are partnering to commercialize it.

Although Steele expects the ​ traditional plastics industry to remain the same for years to come, he said the shift is on from petrochemical feedstocks to plastics made from renewable feedstocks.

"The bio-derived segment of the plastics industry is just getting started and will grow," Steele said. "As we demonstrate that these materials are superior to metal, glass, paper, wood, etc., new products and applications will be born."

In the meantime, the overall plastic packaging industry seems to be at a low point for innovation and product launches to Steele.

"Much of what is going on is derivative and optimization of technology that is now going on 70 years old," he said. "We've not seen a new process or real new package innovation in some time. I have seen this cycle before. We need to persevere through it and continue looking at consumer needs to find that new product or new platform for building the next generation of packaging."

He expects the needs of an aging population and the ever-increasing demands on health care to drive innovation in packaging for pharmaceuticals and even beverages.

"The beverage industry will create new products — functional beverages and products that are good for you," Steele said.

E-commerce will become the way to shop, too, he predicts. Steele sees a day in the next 25 years when stores made of bricks are replaced with consumer clicks. Products will need lightweight, durable packaging to protect goods during shipping more than catchy packaging to stand out on store shelves or over-sized packaging to deter shoplifting.

"It's hard to believe that our local grocery store will not be around, but I can see where you no longer go to malls and big-box stores and that a high percentage of your staple products you normally buy at the store arrive at your home without any shopping needed," Steele said. "Plastic packaging is going to have to step up to the needs created by this trend. Today, it is mainly paper packaging used to protect the goods you get delivered to the home. This is a huge opportunity for us."