It is undeniable that one of the most progressive and successful industries today is the plastic packaging industry. Plastic packaging and plastic containers are widely used globally. Plastic packaging can be found in homes, offices, fast food chains, restaurants, and in many other retail outlets! That’s how expansive the scope of this industry has become. Reaching the pinnacle of success in any endeavor is something that should be celebrated, and the efforts and sacrifices that have been made to achieve this packaging industry story certainly deserve to be honored and recognized. Dr. Tom Brady’s History of the PET Bottle is a perfect way to recognize the hard work of the many people who helped to create this important plastic industry story.
The Humble Beginnings
In the first chapter of the book, Dr. Brady recalls his years as a Senior Plastics Technology Associate at Owens-Illinois (O-I) – which was then a glass, paper, metal, and plastic packaging manufacturing company. He was hired coincidentally during the time when the evolution of glass to plastic packaging was about to begin and just as Coca-Cola asked O-I and its other packaging suppliers to create options for “family-sized” beverage containers to enhance their marketing strategy. And from that moment, Dr. Brady and his colleagues were given the chance of a lifetime to create a completely new industry – the development and commercialization of PET bottles. And little did they know at the time that they would become prominent figures in the plastic industry.
The introduction of the PET bottle is not a typical industry story, but it is an important historical story from a commercial standpoint. For Dr. Brady, it was a privilege to capture and document the PET bottle technology’s historical value by writing about it.
The Process and Behind the Scenes
The author provides complete details and documentation about how it all began, and he explains how things were completely different back then, stating that, “In 1972, the only option for packaging carbonated beverages were glass and aluminum containers.”
Dr. Brady, together with his O-I co-workers, concluded very quickly that plastic was the only technically viable approach to making family-sized beverage containers that would be both safe and economical. And of course, the competition was tough back then. O-I was not the only company trying to find a better option. There were also several companies that worked equally as hard as O-I to develop a commercial plastic bottle that could be used by soft drink brand owners.
Monsanto, for example, successfully produced the first commercially successful plastic carbonated soft drink bottle as early as1973, using their trademarked acrylonitrile (AN) resin, LopacTM, which also had the required permeability and strength properties for carbonated beverages.
As it happens, the AN approach was also hotly pursued by O-I, and by early 1973 O-I had already formed a team to develop an AN polymer option that O-I could commercialize to compete with Monsanto. However, the then-popular AN polymer was suddenly declared to be carcinogenic by the FDA, which caused O-I to immediately abandon this approach. O-I then launched a program called the “Oriented Polymer Focused Effort” with the objective of understanding how two-dimensional molecular orientation could enhance the properties of any commodity polymer that might be used for carbonated soft drinks or for any high performance plastic container, by enhancing the properties of plastics during the forming process.
And as if it was destiny, Dr. Brady and his O-I colleague, Dr. Saleh Jabarin, who was coincidentally a Dartmouth College classmate of Dr. Brady’s, were jointly assigned leadership roles to create and conduct the Oriented Polymer Focused Effort which turned out to be crucial for the eventual development of a commercial plastic bottle that could compete with glass and metal.
After a series of hypotheses and many trial-and-error efforts, the O-I development team finally concluded that PET (polyester) plastic offered the best material option for beverage containers.
Reminiscing the Pleasant Memories
This informative book will amaze readers with the huge amount of historical information the author has included. The behind-the-scenes stories and the many ground-breaking discoveries that were made possible by many O-I and industry scientists and engineers are indeed historically significant achievements for the plastic packaging industry.
Dr. Brady also takes the time to recognize the many industry names and companies who also made huge contributions to the eventual commercial success of the PET bottle. He takes care not to leave out any important person or company, for it was his goal to let the world know about the collective contributions of those who have been integral to the development of this industry. He wanted their words and memories to live on through his book.
Anyone who is interested to know more about the packaging industry can purchase a copy of this book on Amazon or BookBaby, or at any bookstore.
And if readers wish even more historical information about Dr. Brady, or about the development of the PET packaging industry, they should considering reading Dr. Brady’s other two recently published books, including “The Impact of Owens-Illinois on the World,” and “Plastic Technologies, Inc. – Our Story.”