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N. GOODRICH, Technical Director, Amcor PET Technologies, 910 Central Parkway West, Mississauga, ON N1R 5S7, Canada

ADVANCEMENTS IN POLYMER TECHNOLOGY

Exciting new opportunities for clear plastic packaging continue to develop. Emerging opportunities place increased demands on barrier and heat resistant properties of plastic packages. Combination of new resin developments, blends and process improvements continue to push rigid plastics to new performance levels. This paper will discuss the new materials and processes available to frame the next generation of package developments.

Performance, as measured by CO2 and Oxygen barrier as well as flavor barrier has been rapidly improving. The initial high performance options were very expensive. As performance options increased the emphasis for resin development shifted to price improvement. Recent barrier options have dramatically decreased price per unit of performance. The next frontier for resin development is environmental acceptability. The proliferation of multiple barrier options, has threatened the valuable PET recycle stream. This paper will address resin developments in terms of performance, price and the environment.