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Friendly Plastic Pop Can Nearly Ready for Market
drfishy writes "BevNET has the story of Toledo, OH based Owens-Illinois and their new pop can. The can is made of a "fancy" new clear plastic with a traditional aluminum top and should be in stores sometime this year. Consumers are supposed to like it because of the "cool" factor, manufacturers will like it because they can use the same equipment to fill and package them, beverage companies like it because consumers and manufacturers will, and advertising agencies love it because they can get rich making all new commercials to convince people it really is cool. Seriously though, I like the idea, enough to submit a story about it anyway..."
What the hell is pop? I think you mean soda, or maybe coke, but certainly not pop.
Obligatory link: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~almccon/pop_soda/
rooooar
Great! Another reason to add more and more garish artifical colors to my sugar water.
Gimme some more o' dat green "Romulan Ale"!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
They declared bankrupcy after a huge loss in a class-action asbestos lawsuit. Then they went on to simply not pay many small design firms they owed money to. Pretty much puta few of them out of business. It was right around Christmas time too.
Anyone think they'll pay these firms pay after plastic pop cans become all the rage? Yeah, me neither...
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
This can may be new to the market, but it's not a new design. I held a prototype of this exact can (plastic body, aluminum top) while visiting a friend that worked at a 7UP plant back in the early 1980s, twenty years ago. The can was clear green plastic with the 7UP paint job. It was empty, but sealed.
how do you crush it on your forhead? A plasticy plunk is nowhere near as manishly satifying as the savory crash and pang of sweet, metallic destruction...
-- Insert wisdom here:
So how do i recycle this can? Do i put it in the plastics or aluminium bin? By the way, where i live its not "coke" and not pop (doesn't matter if its sprite, dr pepper, or coca cola)
Carpe meam simiam!
How do the recycling folks like it? What's the number in the little triangle? I suppose they'll have to separate the top from the body to recycle it at all. Gotta love that!
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Right now aluminum cans are recycled by many people because they bring a decent price and there are many places they can be sold. But plastic? As far as I know, there's no money to be made by an individual in recycling plastic and if there is, I doubt it's as much as aluminum.
Check out AbiWord.
I was drinking out of these cans years ago (like 5 years). Yes, they looked somewhat "cool" becuase of the clear body, but they seemed to have disappeared. Was it becuase the contents tasted like crap? Packaging by itself isn't enough to make a successful product.
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Great. Finally we can get the plastic taste from cans too.
Before the soda connoisseurs get on here and try to tell us they're not gonna like these because the soda from the metal cans tastes better than the soda from the plastic bottles, keep in mind the aluminum cans' interiors are coated with some sort of plastic material.
Otherwise the carbonic acid would react with the aluminum, and leave you with a nasty taste (I believe due to Aluminum Oxide? but its been a while since high school Chemistry).
"And like that
This isn't news for nerds, it is news for marketing geeks. And those two groups are certaintly not the same!
Really though, this is nothing new. It is just using old technology to try to make people buy more of something that everyone needs less of (put your own link to children becoming fat on soda/pop/cola/coke here please).
--David
"The Beverage Network" merits it's own website complete with a news and reviews sections...I am, however, completely dissappointed in the lack of a Mountain Dew review. I mean, wth?
Show me what you want, and I'll show you how to get along without it...
this?
I remember these transparent plastic cans with standard aluminium top at least ten years ago, selling here in the UK.
AFAICR, the drink itself was foul.
How can this be marked Redundant when it's the FIRST POST?
At least I hope Slashdot collected some money for the headline. If not, they're bigger suckers than those of us who read the article.
Easy. When you say what everybody else is thinking, you're being redundant.
Hey, kids, can you spell "redundant?"
DDB (who sees no need to migrate from the all-plastic 20-oz form factor)
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
Does this mean this can will keep my drink cool at all times?
Or am I just expecting too much?
Well, technically you can separate the aluminum from the plastic, but no consumer is going to take the time to do that - most people are still too lazy to take the screw caps off their plastic pop bottles before throwing them in the bin - and there is no way that it will be financially feasible for recycling companies to separate the aluminum from plastic themselves.
Personally, this idea pisses me off enough to keep me from purchasing ever again from companies that bottle their beverages in these cans.
Does anybody else remember the old New York Seltzer plastic can just like this from the 80's? I remember everyone boycotting them because of the recycling issues. They stopped making them pretty quickly.
I have to disagree, the topic is, as they say, on.
Ads for nerds, stuff that sells
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
American beer is shitty, I don't think anyone will care about drinking beer from a plastic "can". It isn't as though beer in an aluminum can tastes good. Besides, we're used to drinking beer in plastic cups at sporting events and keg parties, so it isn't that big of a deal.
But I hope this doesn't catch on, due to all the loser states that don't have deposits for beverage containers. Even the ones that do are only 5 or 10 cents, that ought to be raised to 20 or 25 cents so it is worth it for people to return them instead of tossing them in the trash!
Anyone else think of Star Trek IV when they read the article?
--- We are not in the 8th dimension. We are over New Jersey.
In Japan, you can buy bottles made completely out of aluminum. It's an aluminum can narrowing into a neck at the top with a traditional metal twist-off cap, and it's got a sticker around it which looks much like the decoration on a standard Coke can.
Now I can find the one with the finger in it without having to open them all!
If the stupidity or laziness of a few makes the efforts of everyone else useless (they still have to pass them under a magnet), then the industrious and smart people should rebel and pretend they're stupid to send a message that thier time and efforts are being wasted.
However, the magnet that processes steel might be part of a system that can't handle aluminum and vice versa, so the magnet simply causes a small percentage of material to be rejected. In this sense, the stupid people generate rejected material, but the efforts of the smart people are not wasted. It would be interesting if someone who knew explained how the recycling system works.
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Because the moderator is a retard? That's what meta-mod is for.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
here's the prior-art non-patent application:
Method for making recycleable transparent beverage containers
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I remember in health food shops here in the UK there used to be a soft drink (flavoured water) in a can exactly as described.
It was called 'Glacier' or something similiar, maybe glacial.
Very refreshing fwiw as well, and this was at least 10 years ago.
Nothing new here, move along.
I'm wondering how these "new" pop cans will compare to the old ones (if the "new" ones even succeed) in terms of keeping my Coke colder, longer. AFAIK, plastic is a better insulator than metal, but there are exceptions. Nevertheless, will it keep my cold drink cold (at least longer than in the old Aluminum cans)?
Caffine comes from coffee. Coffee does not come in cans. Or at least, good coffee does not.
Unless they can convince the folks at Guinness to bottle me Draught in the techno can so I can see the nitro widget kick off, I really could give a rats ass less.
in vain to reduce the dangerous aura of aluminium beverage cans by
adding saftey tabs, wider mouth ports, and even larger sized cans.
Now with the technological advent of non-lethal weaponry, can makers
have taken inspiration in the design of so called 'plastic bullets', hence the
new handsome containers and confident consumers.
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
Some of us do better than that.
I, for one, save all the Tyvek I can find. Then I make a point of throwing it, in smallish squares of about 8x10 inches, in with the 'Office Paper' recycling at work. If you want to see a recycling program REALLY screwed up, you need to see what Tyvek does in a 'pulp' of office paper.
...Coke and Pepsi sale drop drasticly as consumers finally see what kinds of crap they've been drinking all these years!
Ed Wedig
Graphic design services
docbrown.net
A clear plastic 'can' and that's it? We've had these for several years in the UK - it was indeed just a 'cool' market attempt. They also had small carefully-density-controlled jelly balls floating throughout the drink. Seems to have pretty much died by now.
This is my World Wide Web of Whatever
In Mighigan 10 years or so ago they still had reusable half liter bottles of pop (as they called it there). Excellent. I think these are gone now, though.
sulli
RTFJ.
Container makers have transparent intentions Joseph Pryweller CHICAGO -- December 02, 2002 Clear is here. Transparent is apparent in plastic packaging. Bad poetry aside, two plastic container makers are unveiling food and beverage products that they say could speed the conversion of containers to plastic from their metal or glass forebears. They are doing it by showing off see-through containers that they think will add consumer appeal. The transfer to plastic containers in itself is not that new. Since the late 1990s, a rush of new plastic bottles and food containers has hit store shelves. The parade of new replacement products continues unabated, said Thomas Dunn, director of development, technology and marketing for Printpack Inc., a film extruder and converter based in Atlanta. Examples include single-serve bottles and new shelf-stable barrier packages, Dunn said. ``There's a lucrative market right now for plastics,'' Dunn said. ``It's still a growth market.'' Two new products stand out for contributing to the growing interest in clear containers: * Toledo, Ohio-based Owens-Illinois Inc. is launching a PET soft drink can that is clear. Imagine the vending machine of the future. You hit the button and out pops your can of bubbly in clear plastic. You can actually see the liquid in each can. * Pechiney Plastic Packaging Inc. of Chicago is introducing what it claims is the world's first clear food jar made of multilayer, oriented polypropylene. Now, your pasta sauces can be packaged in a commodity plastic that can be heated easily and made at a cost lower than with PET, the previous standard-bearer for plastic containers. Both O-I and Pechiney are looking for development partners, namely high-volume end users, that can advance the technology that they have created in North American laboratories. But the companies believe they are onto something truly innovative for food and drink products. The companies talked about their products during Pack Expo International 2002, held Nov. 3-7 in Chicago. The plastic soft drink can draws parallels to the PET beer bottle, another product developed by O-I that turned heads when it was released. Like beer, soft drink cans might not be headed for immediate market takeoff, because interest could take some time to grow, said David Andrulonis, vice president of O-I's plastics group for food and beverage products. ``It's something that's going to be different, for people who want a product that's really interesting,'' Andulonis said at Pack Expo. ``What could be the differentiator is the ability for us to add any shape or embossed logo to this can.'' The company is starting with simple-shaped cans that mimic their 12-ounce aluminum cousins. The prototype even had a metal flip-top lid. The cans can also be made with a plastic closure. O-I first showcased the can in October at InterBev '02 in Atlanta. The can design follows the path of clear-plastic beer bottles. It is made with the same blow molded PET construction, with two layers of the resin sandwiching proprietary barrier material that protects against the permeation of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The barrier layer keeps carbon dioxide in and oxygen out, helping to preserve the soft drink's taste, color and shelf life, Andrulonis said. Another patented O-I technology, SurShot, precisely measures the amount of barrier material that goes in each can, he said. That keeps the pricey substance at a minimum, as low as 1.5 percent of the total package weight. The product has possibilities for juices, sports drinks, isotonics and other beverages, Andrulonis said. In addition, the cans can be made with as much as 35 percent post-consumer resin. The product was the first effort under O-I's reorganized product-development team. Last fall, the company pooled its research and development work in Toledo. It had been more splintered, operating at locations such as its Continental PET facility in Bedford, N.H. ``We wanted to pull together our development expertise in Toledo and see what we could come up with,'' Andrulonis said. ``You're seeing the first fruits of those labors.'' The company hopes those efforts will provide another spike to PET containers. Although the major companies are starting to commercialize plastic beer bottles, that market is taking time to develop. Meanwhile, those same PET containers are being used for new flavored alcoholic beverages, such as hard lemonades and iced teas, Andrulonis said. PET soft drink cans could take acceptance another step, he said. The company expects to have a soft drink product on the market by the middle of 2003, Andrulonis said. Several undisclosed companies are evaluating the product. At Pechiney, hopes are equally high for its Gamma Clear container, made with two layers of OPP and an oxygen barrier resin. As with O-I, Pechiney's barrier material is made with ethylene vinyl alcohol. But while O-I is gunning for the metal-can market, Pechiney wants to replace glass food containers and those now made with PET. Three years in development, the containers have properties similar to PET but at a lower cost, said Martin Matushek, Pechiney director of marketing and strategy for global plastic bottles. While PET containers have difficulty with heat, the OPP jars can be heated to temperatures as high as 205ø F without losing their shape, he said. ``It's the first plastic jar that can get as hot as you want it to get,'' Matushek said at the Pechiney booth during Pack Expo. ``They have some performance advantages over PET.'' Meanwhile, Pechiney wants to take advantage of the continued conversion from glass jars to plastic. A major market exists for all sorts of products, including containers holding jams and jellies, pickles, salsa and pasta sauces, Matushek said. Pechiney has been developing the containers at its preform mold facility in Bellevue, Ohio, and its stretch blow molding plant in Batavia, Ill., he said. Pechiney has been working with several equipment suppliers to make the OPP bottles and, like O-I with its clear cans, has received commercial approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Now the company is seeking development partners to bring the PP product to market, Matushek said. The company is boosting its bottle-manufacturing operations in North America and Europe. The company, part of Paris-based Pechiney Group, broke ground in August on a new bottle plant in Orange, France, that is expected to move to full production late this year. That facility will focus on the French private-label condiment market, another possibility for the OPP jars, Matushek said. Ketchup containers could be especially appealing in OPP, he said. However, PET is not going away, especially now that it has captured some of the glass and metal market. Some new choices seem clear. At Pack Expo, Amcor PET Packaging - the world's largest maker of PET containers - unveiled multiserve, heat-set bottles in a variety of configurations. Products include new bottles with better ergonomic grips, now being used for Clearly Canadian flavored water, and those that can be heated to 190 F. ``We have a lot of potential customers that are using glass,'' said spokeswoman Becky Streby, based at Amcor's North American headquarters in Manchester, Mich. ``They'd switch to PET if we can make the containers like glass, with long-neck bottles and other features.'' And Dow Chemical Co. of Midland, Mich., is touting a ripening rigid-packaging product portfolio that includes PP resins for clear, multilayer bottles and PE materials with improved clarity. ``The [containers] are coming on strong for food-type applications, for shelf appeal and shelf life, and in drink cups,'' said Glenn Wright, Dow market manager for rigid packaging in North America. ``It crosses over to all segments with polyesters and polypropylene.'' O-I is taking an imaginative approach with its plastic cans, envisioning a day soon when a six-pack of PET-based soft drink cans is snatched by consumers during supermarket shopping trips. ``We're starting to see activity from our customers interested in this,'' Androlonis said. ``We may not see a big bell curve upward immediately with the [cans]. But the potential volume and size of the market is huge.'
'Plastic cans' pose problems December 16, 2002 The Dec. 2 issue of Plastics News, reports that the ``plastic can'' was recently reintroduced by Owens-Illinois Inc. (``Container makers have transparent intentions,'' Page 1). Those with historical knowledge of plastic packaging and the laws governing container recycling are baffled. More than 15 years ago a company called Petainer considered the hybrid container, but soon rejected it due to unresolved recycling issues. If this new container is so innovative, why haven't the recycling solutions been disclosed? The first generation of plastic cans threatened to contaminate the PET recycling stream with PVC labels, as did the aluminum top. O-I's latest creation, if released, would contribute to an emerging contamination problem because of its multilayer components, not to mention the aluminum top. Even the reported ambitious potential of 35 percent recycled content fails to mitigate the impending loss to the recycling industry at large. Did O-I consider consulting the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers before developing such a recycling nightmare? Aluminum top aside, multilayer containers may be recycled with traditional PET bottles in low percentages. If the percentage of multilayer containers grows, the barrier material will create significant problems for recyclers, jeopardizing the current PET recycling infrastructure. It is stated that O-I developed technology (SurShot) to limit the amount of barrier material used in layers to decrease their own cost. Unfortunately, they failed to develop the technology that would decrease the cost that society would bear if the plastic can floods the waste stream. O-I may be able to ignore increased recycling costs in some states, but in California, industry foots a significant portion of the bill. Increased costs to recycle leads to increased processing fees for beverage makers, which are O-I's potential customers. One way O-I could shirk costs in California would be to use a No. 7 (Other) recycling code since No. 7 recycling rates are significantly lower than PET recycling rates. Since the current law actually penalizes industry as recycling rates increase, O-I could pay the portion of the processing fee for No. 7s, which would save a bundle. The question is whether soda giants are willing to take the public heat for bottling in a nonrecyclable container and gamble on the notion that the law will remain the same. We encourage Owens-Illinois and all other container makers to consider the recycling issues when developing a new product. All practical issues aside, what is so innovative about a container that mimics the aluminum can? Plastic soda bottles that fall from vending machines already offer transparency, but they also offer rescrewable caps - and they can be recycled! Heidi Melander Zero Waste Committee, Northern California Recycling Association San Francisco
"Soft drink" -- a holdover from Prohibition times that's still used today. I've lived in the South, and I don't think I've ever heard "fountain drink" used except maybe to specifically refer to whether or not a drink comes from a can or a fountain. "Soft drink" is definitely more popular where I've lived, with "Coke" being the most often.
(However, even living in Georgia, I've never actually heard anyone call any non-cola drink a "Coke." Ever.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
But I wonder how dirty they get? Plastic seems to attract dirt worse than aluminum.
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