Oct 27 2008
SCHWÄLBCHEN AG, a dairy company in Bad Schwalbach, Germany, is now using beverage bottles made of BASF’s Polystyrene. Serial production has started, after the switch from PET to PS was successfully tested on the existing filling equipment in a joint project.
The SCHWÄLBCHEN dairy company is now using BASF’s Polystyrene for its beverage bottles.
The material is a highly impact-resistant polystyrene (PS-I) made by BASF that is used for injection blow molding and injection stretch blow molding. The density advantage that poly¬styrene has over PET means that approximately 20% less plastic is needed for the production of the bottles. This also translates into 20% less packaging mate¬rial that has to be disposed of. Polystyrene, which up to now has been known primarily as a material for food-product films and yoghurt cups, is also proving its worth for re-sealable packaging made of plastic. “This is a step in the right direction,” comments Jürgen Deusser, head of sales and marketing at the Schwälbchen company.
The polystyrene type BX 3580, which BASF optimized specifically for these beverage bottles, was introduced at the K 2007 plastics trade fair. This poly¬styrene has passed mechanical, organoleptic and microbiological tests on filled PS bottles; since it is permeable to gas and water vapor, it lends itself quite well for dairy products such as yoghurt drinks and milk beverages. The product can be processed by means of injection blow molding and injection stretch blow molding on the same machines that are used for PET. In the meantime, BASF has filed a patent application for the concept.