Finland’s bottlers turn to single-trip PET

A change to Finland’s environment law covering plastics packaging, due to come into force next January, is prompting a number of drinks producers in the country to replace their existing refillable PET bottles with lightweight single-trip PET alternatives.

Carlsberg-owned Sinebrychoff, Finland’s largest brewer, is the latest to announce such a move. It will sell some of its KOFF range of beer and all of its soft drinks and cider lines in non-refillable recyclable single-trip PET bottles from 2008.

For economic reasons Sinebrychoff, along with several other Finnish brewers, fills and distributes soft drinks alongside its beer activities.

The company has invested ?26m in two new single-trip PET bottling lines from Sidel with 36,000 bottle per hour capacity. “The retail sector wants thin plastic bottles to save space and weight,” says Sinebrychoff CEO Mikael Aro.

The lightweight single-trip bottles are a first for the Sinebrychoff product line and will replace the refillable plastic bottles the company currently uses for mineral waters, soft drinks and ciders.

Sinebrychoff also says some of its beers will be packaged in a multi-layer single-trip bottle comprised of outer and inner PET layers with a polyamide oxygen and CO2 barrier layer between.

“Beer is sensitive to light, air and heat. As we wanted to maintain KOFF’s quality, our choice is not cheap. It preserves the beer’s flavour and we can guarantee it will keep at least six months, although glass and cans will remain the primary beer package,” explains production director Kimmo Jääskeläinen.

The Sinebrychoff soft drink bottle design comes from Coca-Cola, but the company has developed its own shapes and colours for its alcoholic drinks range.

Meanwhile Olvi, which is Finland’s third largest brewer, is installing an 18,000/hour single-trip PET bottling line from KHS of Germany at its brewery in Iisalmi. The line will trial in November with production scheduled to start in December.

“Olvi at present does not have a recyclable plastic bottling line but there is a RefPet (refilling) one. This new second line will make all sizes from 0.5-2.0 litres containing non-alcoholic beverages to begin with,” says Pentti Pelttari, Olvi’s technical manager.

Olvi says it may also package its ciders in PET but not beer, which the company says is not sufficiently well accepted in plastic.

Refillable PET bottles have been popular in Finland because of the structure of the country’s environmental tax, which effectively discouraged non-refillable options. However, from 2008 all plastic bottles sold in the country (except dairy products) will have to carry a deposit to encourage return.

The revised legislation makes no distinction between disposable or re-usable types, but if the producer achieves an 80% return rate they avoid the current ?0.51/litre Finnish environmental tax.