100% recyclate: KHS and startup share develop unique PET bottle

The plans are ambitious: in 2019 share wants to fill water into about a million bottles a month made entirely of recycled PET and thus save over 200 metric tons of plastic waste a year, according to the company. For several weeks now the product has been on sale at Germany’s supermarket chain REWE and drug store dm and has caused quite a stir in the media. “It took a long time for the original idea to be implemented,” says Iris Braun, head of Product and Social Projects at share. “Finalizing the technology and obtaining certification are both lengthy processes. Your partners are thus crucial.” Besides the two aforementioned retailers share’s other partners are bottler Mineralbrunnen Allgäuer Alpenwasser and preform manufacturer Plastipack, which is also the world’s biggest converter. KHS Corpoplast was also largely instrumental in the implementation of the project.

Experience from over 4,000 realized bottle designs
The German engineering company supported the startup in several ways, including in the development of the recyclate bottle design, states Marc Eysel, who is responsible for sales in Northern Europe at KHS Corpoplast. “We implemented the development very quickly and worked on a suitable design together,” he says. Thanks to its holistic Bottles & Shapes™ consultancy program the systems supplier was able to contribute to the share project experience drawn from over 4,000 designed bottles. “KHS developed the bottle very quickly for us which was enormously helpful,” says Braun.

Eysel states that there were no unusual hurdles or challenges to be overcome through the use of 100% recyclate. “Manufacture is actually simpler as the material’s darker color makes the preforms easier to heat than PET bottles made of virgin material.” Besides providing advice on the bottle design KHS also helps with production. share’s still and carbonated water is bottled at the Allgäuer Alpenwasser bottling plant in Oberstaufen using KHS technology. The bottles are blown on an InnoPET Blomax stretch blow molder, with no special adaptations to the system necessary, according to Eysel.

Following the market launch of the recyclate bottle, interest is now also growing among other beverage producers, emphasize Braun and Eysel. “A number of bottlers wishing to increase the amount of recycled PET they use have now contacted us,” claims Eysel. “The protection of the environment also plays an important role at KHS. We support this by providing resource-saving plant engineering and also by developing sustainable PET bottles.” share hopes that it has provided the right incentives for more sustainability, states Braun. “In the end it’s the consumer who decides.”