Bottle market

In 1997 it was estimated that global production of PET was about 16.7 X 10 t.p.a., of which 12 million tonnes was used in textiles, 2 million tonnes for audio and video film (with a small quantity for technical mouldings) and 3 million tonnes for packaging, particularly bottles. The tremendous growth in the bottles market from zero in the late 1970s to 1.5 million tonnes in the USA alone in 1998 is, in consumption terms, one of the most spectacular examples of growth in plastics materials in recent times and will be considered later in this section. 

Other estimates placed the film and bottle market to be of a similar size in Japan while globally the bottle market was about 20% of the total. Together with other data this suggests that the fibre and filament market absorbs about 72% of PET capacity, containers about 19%, film about 7% and mouldings 2%. Considerable quantities of PET bottles are, however, recycled into fibres for use, for example, in outdoor clothing. 

Figure 2.22. Material shares in the bottle market in Western Europe...

HOPE is a largely linear form of PE. It accounts for over 50% of the plastic bottle market and is used to contain milk, juices, margarine, and some grocery snacks. It is easily formed through application of heat and pressure and is relatively rigid and low cost. 

LLDPE resins formulated for the blow molding applications have superior environmental stress-cracking resistance and low gas permeability. These features opened new bottle markets where such properties are important. A large variety of molded articles with a complex configuration... 

In this instance, the minimum compression layer thickness is at least three times the depth of typically found defect sizes in the returnable bottle market so in theory the defects should be surrounded by compressive stresses and will therefore have higher strength than comparable annealed ware,... 

The PET bottle market grew rapidly to 600 million pounds per year following the introduction of the 2-liter soft drink bottle in 1978. Today, there are more than 6 billion PET bottles produced worldwide each year, and we fully expect that number to double within the next five years as PET edges its way into liquor, wine, food and even beer markets. 

The 2-liter bottle market is essentially saturated and growth is expected at a 2-3 percent per year rate. The 3-liter bottle, introduced last year, is getting mixed reviews, and growth is likely to be at the expense of the 2-liter bottle. 

Last year, 100 million pounds of post-consumer plastic soft drink bottles were recycled in the U.S. — about 20 percent of all the PET in the bottle market. According to the Plastic Bottle Institute, by 1988, more than 230 million... 

Nevertheless, I persisted in spending a great deal of personal time on the notion that if I could only produce a container which had the self-equalizing properties of a rubber balloon — I would have the answer. Meanwhile, I kept trying to convince others at Du Pont that we should keep working on the bottle because of the potential for plastics to displace glass in the immense glass soda bottle market. 

Polyethylene terephthalate and HDPE bottles continue to comprise over 96% of the United States plastic bottle market. In 2011, the total annual post-consumer plastic bottles recycled in the United States increased to an all-time high of 2624 million pounds. The total bottle collection rate was 28.9% for 2011. Plastic bottles with recycling codes 3 to 7 makeup only 3.5% of the plastic bottle market. Of these bottles, polypropylene bottles were recycled at a rate of 2.2% and PVC recycled bottles were recycled at a rate of 0.8% in 2011 (Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers and the American Chemistry Council 2011). 

Figure 7.9 Bottle marketed by Biota, fabricated using NatureWorks PLA (Kale et al., 2007).

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