Introduced 19 years ago, disappeared from the shelves again 13 years ago: the returnable PET bottle for mineral water. The market leader, the Ottakringer subsidiary Vöslauer, has reintroduced the 1-liter reusable container for mineral water and two flavored varieties. Vöslauer wants to be a pioneer, many other companies have to follow, because from 2024 all shops will have to offer reusable containers in all beverage categories, from beer to milk. “We are bringing reusables back to Austrian shops,” said Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) at the presentation on Wednesday.
More than 1.6 billion plastic bottles from various suppliers come onto the Austrian market every year, which means a doubling within 20 years. Many end up in nature, recycling only works to a limited extent. A resource-saving and climate-friendly alternative are reusable bottles that can be taken back, washed and refilled for years.
The reintroduction of the reusable PET bottle by Vöslauer is “a huge step for the circular economy,” said Greenpeace Austria Managing Director Alexander Egit. Of course, as with glass beer bottles, the goal is for many manufacturers to agree on a uniform shape for the PET bottle, because this saves a lot of transport kilometers and significantly increases circulation figures.
Bottles remain “beautiful”
Vöslauer assumes that the PET bottle can be reused at least 12 times. It is priced the same as the glass bottle, it weighs only 55 grams. The old PET bottle was only used twice because it quickly became unattractive. The technology has improved greatly, said the managing directors of the mineral water manufacturer, Birgit Aichinger and Herbert Schlossnikl, as the unsightly “scuffing rings” on the bottles are avoided by using other transport crates and a washing system in which the bottles are fixed so that they do not rub against each other.
A proprietary “sniffing technology” discovered bottles that contained something other than mineral water. These will be sorted out. According to Schlossnikl, the reject rate for PET is twice as high as for glass (two percent). The company has invested seven million euros in the PET system and expects a return rate of 97 percent for depositable reusable PET containers, as with glass.
Still too low a percentage of recycled PET material
For “quality reasons”, the proportion of new PET material used in bottle production is still very high (70 percent). However, Vöslauer wants to increase the proportion of recyclates.
Only 20 percent of beverages in food retail are currently filled in reusable glass bottles.
Will there be beer in PET bottles? Ottakringer boss Alfred Hudler answers: “There were attempts. They all failed because of consumer acceptance.” He only sees a chance for this if technological developments dispel consumer reservations – such as changes in taste. In the case of beer, however, Ottaktringer has switched to the standard bottle for environmental reasons, although consumers liked the old Ottakringer bottle better.
Source: Nachrichten
