Petainer is building on the excellent platform provided by PET's environmental benefits and is strategically focused on innovating for a sustainable future.
Several reports have demonstrated that PET packaging has a lower carbon footprint than competitive materials such as glass.
For example, a report from PETRA (the PET Resin Association) found that using PET packaging rather than glass generated 77 per cent less greenhouse gases, used 58 per cent less energy and created 93 per cent less weight of solid waste. A report from UK government agency Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and research by Coca-Cola also show that PET has better environmental performance than glass.
A 2005 German life cycle analysis found that PET beverage bottles reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by half in comparison to glass or metal containers.
A series of life cycle analyses conducted by the Allied Development Corporation in 2009 determined how the environmental footprint and greenhouse gas emissions of manufacturing and transporting PET relates to alternative forms of packaging for carbonated soft drinks (CSD) and wine in North America and CSD in Europe.
The studies found that in North America, PET is better than aluminium cans or glass bottles for a 355 ml CSD application and better than glass for a 750 ml wine bottle. When measuring greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption, PET containers had the best performance.
In Europe, the performance of PET bottles for CSD was significantly better than glass or aluminium with regard to greenhouse gas emissions and better than glass for energy consumption.
Environmental impact
Although the feedstocks for PET manufacture are oil-based, the overall environmental impact of PET is very favourable in comparison to glass, aluminium and other container materials.
PET's exceptional capacity-to-weight ratio is a key to its energy efficiency, putting more product in less packaging and therefore using less fuel for transport.
For example, if a truck were to deliver a typical load of PET-packaged soft drinks, the liquid would account for approximately 93 per cent of the load weight, with the PET bottles accounting for the remaining 7 per cent. By comparison, if the same truck were to deliver the same amount of drink packaged in glass, the liquid would account for 57 per cent of the load weight and the glass bottles would account for 43 per cent.
Ongoing advances in technology continue to decrease the weight of PET containers and to boost the material’s energy efficiency even more. In 1980, a typical two-litre PET bottle weighed 68 grams. Today it typically weighs only 47 grams and the ‘lightweighting’ of PET containers is continuing.
However, the one-time use and disposal of PET containers is a waste of a valuable material that can be economically and efficiently recovered and reused. PET is highly recyclable and the industry – including Petainer – is actively involved in encouraging and supporting efforts to increase the percentage of PET that is recycled and reused in the raw material feedstock for new containers.
The use of refillable PET bottles has all the environmental benefits implicit in the material combined with benefits arising from the bottle being reused up to 25 times in its lifetime, prior to being recycled.
Petainer is the market leader in refillable technologies in Western Europe and Scandinavia and is working closely with many major brands to further improve the environmental performance of refillable containers.
In addition we are strongly focused on helping brand owners to reduce their carbon footprint.
Use of oil
Less than 4 per cent of the world's oil production is used to produce all types of plastics, with PET accounting for less than 0.5 per cent.
Because PET is fully recyclable it is a highly sustainable material. Every time a PET container is recycled, the energy used in its production and its raw materials are recaptured and reused. The closed-loop recycling of used PET containers into new ones dramatically extends the environmental benefits and sustainability of PET as a packaging material.
Although PET is an ‘environmentally friendly’ material we do recognise that oil is a diminishing resource. With this in mind, our experienced technical teams are working closely with experts in many other fields to support the development of new improved materials.
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