New ‘Eco-Audit’ for Your PET Bottle Lines

PET bottle makers and their brand-owner customers are becoming more sensitive to environmental impacts of plastic packaging. Reducing such impacts starts with measuring their current state. A new service from Sidel accomplishes both tasks — impact assessment and reduction — by auditing the energy and materials consumption, and resulting carbon footprint, of PET stretch-blowing lines. According to Sidel, implementing the results of this “Eco-Audit” can translate into significant savings in operating costs, as well as enhanced brand image.

According to Mathieu Druon, Sidel’s Eco-Audit product manager, determining how to reduce the environmental impact of any individual PET bottle system involves a complex mix of factors, such as the quality of the material and design of the preform; heating and blowing technologies; and the technical configuration and operation of the machine — from production to maintenance.

The new Eco-Audit service involves three phases:

• The first phase, called Eco-Assessment, is a comprehensive, in-depth audit of the production process and associated material and energy consumption — from the characteristics of the preform to the machine’s technical configuration and operating parameters. After this thorough examination, a full report is given to the client, detailing actual consumption of materials and energy, its ecological and economic impact, and all potential avenues for reduction.
• The second phase, called Eco-Value, aims to implement all the simple adjustments needed to achieve quick savings in materials and energy. This can involve recipe management, machine settings — from oven heating to use of air in blowing and dedusting — as well as detection and correction of potential air leaks.
• The third phase, called Eco-Partner, is based on the results of the prior two phases and consists of fully supporting the client in transforming its production facilities to fundamentally improve energy efficiency in PET container production. This could involve installing custom parts or options to enable the machine to utilize Sidel’s latest technological advances. Sidel could also recommend improvements to the container neck, preform or bottle design to reduce weight and blowing pressure. Finally, another complete audit of the line results in a report on the savings achieved and forecasts for future gains.

All three phases can take advantage of Sidel’s Evo-ON Eco software, which monitors a PET bottle line’s water, chemicals and energy consumption in real time.

Druon says two test Eco-Audits with clients yielded in one case an annual reduction in carbon footprint of 7 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent and over 80,000 Euros in saved production costs. The other test case reduced the carbon footprint by 157 MT of CO₂ equivalent and saved over 180,000 Euros. In both cases, ROI was barely a few months, according to Druon.

In the near future, Sidel intends to broaden the scope of Eco-Audit beyond PET bottle blowing to other equipment, starting with bottle washers and pasteurizers.