Following the government move to ban BPA (bisphenol A ) for feeding bottles, corporate houses are now looking to switch over to PET. Packaging companies in the country are now gearing up to face this new development and are actively working to produce light weight bottles across sectors like pharma, edible oil and soft drinks.

The pharmaceutical packaging market in Asia-Pacific is expected to witness highest growth rate between 2015 and 2020.Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and various other countries of the Asia/Pacific, Central and South America, and Africa/Mideast regions are among developing markets that are expected to expand and diversify drug-producing industries and register above average gains in pharmaceutical packaging product demand.

Pharmaceutical customers are looking for something additional than just packaging. They are looking for value-addition in existing packaging forms, said Roy Joseph – Regional Vice President – AMESA, Essel Propack.

Indian pharma industry will drive the innovative packaging needs of the future. Specifically the generic drug companies in the country will now require stringent, secure and quality primary and secondary packaging to make a dent in the export market. “We are looking at Asia to accelerate much of the growth prospects,” said PT Sreekumar, managing director, Essentra Asia.

The government has banned ‘Polycarbonate’ plastic which may have BPA. Manjushree is under the process of making feeding bottles of PA/PES/PPSU resin. The company said that these resins show excellent heat resistance and their transparency make them ideal for manufacturing feeding bottles. The bottles are going to be manufactured in the state-of-the-art machines at the plant. Additionally, the caps and the nipples are made from the food grade material approved by (Bureau of Indian Standards) BIS.

“The process of light-weighting involves a complex design process which focuses on the ideal material distribution that results in considerable weight reduction without compromising on strength, appearance or performance features of the PET bottle. Lightweighting is known to significantly reduce the cost savings for manufacturers and also lessens the environmental impact,” said Vimal Kedia, managing director, Manjushree Technopak.

Nitrogen dousing which is a popular technique to make lightweight bottles has proven to be very effective. Injecting nitrogen into the bottle headspace after filling displaces the air in the headspace and creates an internal pressure of five to 10 psi. As it increases the bottle’s rigidity, nitrogen flushing ensures extra strength without adding extra weight. This also provides the bottles with mechanical strength and higher shelf life, Kedia  said.

"We decided to take a step ahead when it comes to light weighting. We have opted to change the neck finish from the traditional 1810 to 1881 (popularly known as short neck) of the PET performs. This move helped in reducing the distance between the neck ring and knurling and also reduced the turnings on the neck from three to two. This change not only resulted in reducing the weight of the preforms from 5.1 grams to 3.8 grams but also the weight of the caps from 2.8 grams to 2.5 grams", he added.

Now the company  has reduced the neck diameter of the carbonated beverage bottles from 28 mm pco to 25 mm pco reducing the bottle weight by 20 per cent. In addition to light-weighting carbonated beverage bottles,the company has also light-weighted the pharma bottles of 100 and 60 ml by seven per cent.