Origin Materials has announced its tethered PET caps, said to be the ‘first’ ever made and designed to align with the EU Single-Use Plastic Directive mandate for connected bottle caps.

The tethered PET cap aims to complement Origin’s PET closure, which claims to be the world’s lightest CSD (carbonated soft drink) cap, compatible with the PCO 1881 neck finish and the first PET cap produced with commercial-scale equipment. Origin says its PET caps can be made with any type of PET plastic; virgin PET, recycled PET (rPET) or biobased PET. 

“The EU Single-Use Plastic Directive, which came into effect last month, mandates that caps stay connected to bottles throughout the European Union,” said John Bissell, Origin co-founder and co-CEO. Bissell added: “If you’re going to keep caps connected to bottles, the logical thing to do is make the cap and the bottle from the same material: PET. Otherwise recycling centres face the problem of separating tethered HDPE or polypropylene caps from PET bottles. With our solution, caps and bottles can be recycled together easily with no need to separate.” 

“Our patent-pending tethered cap design is simple, clever, and user-friendly,” commented Bissell. “We use the threads of the PET cap and bottle to lock the cap into place, angled away from the mouth, not toward it. We are combining the performance and sustainability advantages of our PET caps – recyclability, shelf-life extension, lightweighting, ability to use recycled PET, and enablement of mono-material packaging – with an excellent user experience.” 

Origin’s PCO 1881-compatible caps are expected to be commercially available beginning in Q4 2024, with PCO 1881-compatible tethered caps to follow. 

In related news, Blue Ocean Closures commercially launched its fibre-based screw cap, said to be recyclable in paper waste streams, in partnership with Sweden-based nutritional supplement provider Great Earth. The companies hope that the 95% fibre cap can provide a viable alternative to existing plastic screw caps. 

In April, SnapSlide announced a line of no-torque caps, expected to benefit adult consumers with physical disabilities. The caps feature single-handed opening and closing without sacrificing child resistance, and has a slide-to-open, slide-to-close functionality. 

Source- Packaging News, 2024.

12th August 2024.

https://packagingeurope.com/news/origin-materials-announces-first-tethered-pet-caps/11725.article