Graham Packaging and TalkingRain team up to advance sustainability in PET hot-fill bottles

Graham Packaging Company LP has found a customer for its new, lighter polyethylene terephthalate hot-fill bottle, which reduces costs, waste and a product´s carbon footprint.

TalkingRain Beverage Co. in Preston, Wash., will use Graham Packaging´s G-Lite 20-ounce bottle for its line of vitamin-enhanced waters. The fully recyclable PET bottles will weigh 250 pounds less per truckload, compared with traditional containers, said Doug MacLean, CEO of TalkingRain. The bottles also cost nearly 5% less due to the reduced resin needed to make them, he said.

The bottles have a reduced carbon footprint because they need less material and energy to make and less energy to transport, according to the companies.

Graham Packaging´s challenge was to develop a lighter PET bottle that could be hot-filled. Bottles used in such applications traditionally have required a substantial amount of material in their base to withstand the process. It took the company two years to come up with its G-Lite solution, said Mark Leiden, vice president of global marketing and PET business manager for Graham Packaging.