On July 18, 2023, the 2023 Asia Pacific International Rubber and Plastic Exhibition was successfully held in Qingdao, the world-renowned "City of Beer", and on July 14, the annual Qingdao International Beer Festival will come again as scheduled. In the hot summer, drinking a glass of beer with rich wheat aroma, fine foam and refreshing taste will make you enjoy the wine!
For many people, especially men, beer is an indispensable existence. But the beer packaging containers we usually see are almost all packed in glass bottles or aluminum cans, rather than plastic bottles that are lightweight, unbreakable, more durable at low temperatures, easy to process, and easy to recycle. Why can't plastic bottles be used to hold beer like tea, cola, coffee and other beverages? I have to say that the ideal is very full, but the reality is very skinny! Next, the editor will take everyone to understand the reason why plastic bottled beer is hard to find. And what is the plastics industry trying to do to realize the dream of bottled beer in plastic?
Beer is a sensitive drink that belongs to vacuum filling, and its quality puts forward high requirements on the container packaging used, which must absolutely block the penetration of oxygen. However, plastic (typically PET) is a weaker barrier than glass (glass is completely impermeable to oxygen and carbon dioxide). In other words, beer is more likely to lose gas (carbon dioxide) and gas (oxygen) in a plastic bottle than in a glass bottle. Once oxygen infiltrates, it will easily lead to the oxidation of the wine in the bottle, and if the carbon dioxide that makes the beer bubbles is missed, the beer will become flat and the "freshness" will be greatly reduced. In contrast, glass is tasteless, does not react chemically with the contents inside, and can taste the most authentic taste of food and drink. As an ordinary consumer, the editor uses glass containers as much as possible to drink beer every day, instead of disposable plastic cups, let alone containers for beer. To this end, some material suppliers are working hard to develop PET with barrier coatings in order to better block oxygen and carbon dioxide for plastic beer bottles and narrow the performance gap between plastics and glass. Polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) is one of the important members of the polyester family, and its characteristic is that it is more heat-resistant. Some beer manufacturers try bottles made of PEN resin, but the cost performance of PEN is difficult to compete with PET.
At the same time, an important procedure - "pasteurization" is another serious challenge faced by PET plastics. After most beer is brewed and filled, it needs to be sprayed with boiling water to heat the liquor to kill bacteria that may still be alive, so as to ensure the quality of beer and extend the shelf life. What is frustrating is that PET plastic packaging may not be able to withstand the test of 100 ° C and deform (the same is true for the instant deformation of mineral water bottles when they are filled with boiling water). This means that the pasteurization process needs to be omitted, or more wear-resistant and harder plastic containers need to be used, but this will increase costs, which is naturally "stressful" for current companies. Some beer companies are trying to use the rapid pasteurization method to process the beer before filling to avoid the impact of high pressure and high temperature on the bottle.
Plus, recyclability is a potentially contentious issue. Plastic beer bottles, if made the same brown color as glass bottles to protect beer from the sun, would require an additional coating to protect the liquor inside, and would be harder to recycle than the clear plastic bottles favored by the soft drink industry. Thereby disrupting the existing order of the existing PET plastic recycling system. In addition, the aluminum cap (crown cap) and metal-plated label used in the bottle also pose potential recycling problems.
In addition, glass bottles and cans have formed a pattern of interests over the years. Small courtyards and high walls are hard to defend against. These two materials can still dominate the beer industry.
The editor has been paying attention to the progress of beer plastic bottle packaging more than ten years ago. Developed countries such as Britain and the United States have launched plastic bottled beer as early as the end of the last century. At least on the shelves of supermarkets in China, it is really hard to find its trace. Although European and American countries have tried a lot of plastic packaging for beer, more or less all the shortcomings mentioned above have not been solved. Therefore, in the beer industry, plastic bottles still cannot replace glass bottles and aluminum cans in large quantities. What can be regarded as a bright spot is that based on the consideration of public safety issues caused by glass beer bottles being easily broken, some sports events have stipulated the use of plastic bottles for beer, such as the Olympic Games and the football World Cup. There is also a large plastic bottle for large capacity (see the picture below) and some exposure rates. According to foreign media reports, injection-molded PET bottles containing recyclable barrier materials finally became popular in the United States last year. They are used to hold beverages such as beer, cider, hard soda and pre-mixed cocktails. PET bottled beer has also become a variety of party gatherings. One of the focal points of the event.
So far, the world consumes hundreds of billions of beer containers every year, glass bottles and aluminum cans account for the bulk, and plastic bottles only account for a small part. It is hard to say whether plastic beer bottles are a general trend. Perhaps the popularization of plastic bottled beer is just a dream! How dreams become reality depends on what the industry chain can do to convince the general public to accept such changes.
Still, the editors who support plastic beer bottles are cautiously optimistic. With the current soaring energy prices and the awakening of people's awareness of environmental protection, the advantages of this material are gradually diminishing due to the heavy weight of glass, high energy consumption in manufacturing and transportation, and fragility. As an alternative material, PET has the advantages of light weight, firmness, low energy consumption in the production process, and high sustainability (lower carbon footprint). Coupled with the strong support of the innovative "core" barrier layer, the freshness of beer And the maintenance of the mellow taste is not to mention. I believe that in the future, the beer packaging that everyone sees will definitely change greatly, and the PET plastic packaging will grow steadily. But it won't replace glass or aluminum cans, but instead become a third packaging option.
