Logoplaste develops innovative technology for milk storage in PET bottles

Pet products have been part of our daily lives for some time. Because it is a material very resistant to impact and transparent, Polyethylene Tereftalato is used for packaging products from various segments, from the food and beverage sector to medicines, cosmetics and hygiene and cleaning products. Since arriving in Brazil in 1988, brought by the textile industry for the production of fabrics, this material has gradually gained new functionalities, expanding market horizons for domestic manufacturers and companies abroad. It didn't take long for PET packaging to occupy increasing spaces on supermarket shelves and pantries in Brazilian homes. PET Universe The real revolution, however, took place in the 1990s, with the exponential growth in the popularity of food and beverage packaging. Because they are accessible, modern and safe, PET bottles for soft drinks, waters, juices and other beverages dominated production, as well as thermoformed packaging for food, which from the beginning had excellent acceptance. In this scenario, in 1995, the Portuguese company Logoplaste saw the opportunity to open an operational front in Brazil. The dairy market was the gateway, but diversity has always been the company's trademark, which served as fuel for the constant creation of innovative products, according to the Company's Chairman of the Board of Directors, Filipe de Botton. "Our first partner in the country was Danone and since then we have had the privilege of creating an absolutely extraordinary local team, allowing logoplaste do Brasil to grow and quickly become one of the largest local players in the production of rigid packaging for large customers such as Reckitt Benckiser, Nestlé, P&G and Shefa, among many others." Innovation It was with this innovative view that Logoplaste was able to raise the Brazilian PET bottle market to another level. Created in 2010, the Bottle to bottle project aimed to enable a bottle in PET for long-lived UHT milk that adequately protected the product, but without leaving aside the idea of creating circular solutions for packaging. Thomé Brito, Director of Logoplaste Brasil, classifies the bilayer technology used in bottles for Shefa milk as a great asset of the project. "The interesting and most beautiful of this project is that it is inserted into the circular economy, since we can reuse the bottles in the process of manufacturing new bottles, thus avoiding the improper disposal. The technology already existed, but we were the first to use it around here." To store the product at room temperature for a long period, it was necessary to block the passage of light. Then, the solution found was to develop a technology that consisted of using two layers of PET, the internal black, so that there was no degradation of milk, and the white external, preserving the properties of the packaging. With this, milk protection is guaranteed for a period of 4 to 6 months. According to Thomé, there is a lot of confusion on the part of the consumer and the media of looking at the bottle with bilayer and finding that the product is not good for recycling. On the recycling process developed for the new bottles, the executive explains that all stages follow the terms of the circular recycling solution, which were developed after extensive testing with the products to meet the advances of the new regulation of November 2018. "It's not two materials. It's one, but in two layers. For recycling and reuse, the material is washed, ground and goes through a post-condensation process, which brings back the characteristics necessary for processing and incorporation into new bottles. That is, 100% of the waste is reused, from the lid and label, to the bottle itself. This whole circularity process is approved by ANVISA, following the strict standards of the Brazilian food industry", he concludes.