Page 12 - The HandPrint_July-August

BLOWING SUSTAINABILITY INTO OUR BOTTLES

Dylan Beach, Sustainability Specialist

If you didn’t know that we began blowing our own bottles at GOJO Wooster Campus, just ask someone about it from the
Blow Molding Team. It’s amazing. We are blowing bottles at GOJO Wooster Campus, and Packaging Engineering has
already found ways to reduce the environmental impacts of this operation.

Plastic blow molding is a process used to create plastic bottles. It starts with an injection molded plastic tube called a
preform. The preform is heated, then compressed air is blown into the heat-softened plastic which expands the plastic
into the final shape of a mold.

The preform contains enough plastic to expand into the mold, which is the desired bottle size and shape. Use a preform
with more plastic, and you get a thicker walled bottle. Use a preform with less plastic, and you get a thinner walled bottle.
That is exactly how we light-weighted our FMX 2L Alpha Bottle and our Top-Fill Counter-Mount 2L Bottle. By using the
preform for our 1.2L and 1.25L bottles and blowing them into a 2L mold, we can reduce the amount of PET plastic by 8
grams per bottle (from 42.5g to 34.5g). So far, in 2018 we have blown 15,000 reduced plastic 2L bottles at GOJO
Wooster Campus as a pilot, and we are now ready to blow reduced plastic bottles for production.

In the new CXR dispensing system, we will be starting the Top-Fill Counter-Mount bottle with a 1.2L preform and
therefore avoiding plastic consumption from the start. We are forecasting that 581,657 Top-Fill Counter-Mount CXR 2L
bottles will be blown between 8/1/18 and 7/31/19. With the weight difference of 8g (19%) per bottle there is an avoidance
of 10,259 lbs. of plastic annually. This is equivalent to 134,877 bottles.

With the production of FMX 2L bottles predicted to be over 2 million between November of this year and October of 2019,
the 8g reduction is equal to 40,670 lbs. annually. This is equivalent to 534,730 bottles. By avoiding the plastic in these
forecasted projects, we will avoid emitting 55 metric tons of CO2 equivalent gases. This is the same as the
emissions from 12 cars driven for a year or a year’s electricity use for 8 homes. Together we are changing how
the world stays well.

Thank you to the teams who worked to make this possible:

GOJO Wooster Campus Blow Molding Team:
Mike Jons, Tom Marting, John Henley, Chuck Earnest, Bob Straight, Shane Huffman, Gloriann Martinek, Steve Frankart,
Sharon Miller, Sandra Stranski, Tom Coray, Barb Fox, Attila Pocze, Carl Peterson, Sponsors: Gyan Kumar and Greg
Jensen

Lightweight FMX 2L Alpha Bottle:
Jake Case, Spencer Mellert, Dan Jansen, Carl Peterson, John Moore, Jonathan Johnson, Steve Frankart, Sponsor –
Gyan Kumar

Top Fill Counter Mount:
Annie Weitz, Barb Fox, Tony Bachmann, Jim Jenkins, John Moore, Scott Proper, Mark Moore, Jake Case, Justin
Marquardt, Sharon Miller
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