From 3 July 2024, the caps and lids on beverage packaging of up to three litres must remain firmly attached to the bottle even after opening. This is stipulated in the EU’s Single-Use Plastics Directive and is aimed at limiting the environmental pollution caused by unattached caps. ALPLA presented its customers with a number of different solutions over a year ago. And based on this, Vöslauer, the number-one company in the Austrian mineral water market, has now introduced such a cap for some of its 1-litre bottles in Austria and Germany, as the first ALPLA customer in the world to do so.
Easy to use
Vöslauer’s innovative ‘Bleibt dran’ tethered cap guarantees top quality and drinking enjoyment. The cap can be pulled to one side with a slight twisting motion, keeping it out of the way when pouring or when drinking directly from the bottle. ‘The cap is tethered to the bottle by a band, so it can’t get lost. With this solution, we are performing pioneering work as a provider in this area of sustainability too,’ explains Vöslauer’s Managing Director Birgit Aichinger. Attached to bottles made entirely of 100% recyclate, the caps can simply be disposed of in the recycling bin bag or bin or, in Germany, via bottle return machines.
Long-standing partnership
‘We are thrilled to have reached another milestone in new packaging technology. This innovation is the result of the outstanding expertise of our partner ALPLA,’ says Vöslauer’s Managing Director Herbert Schlossnikl. ‘We are a team that works on and then realises projects together again and again. We have been doing this for some time now, so we work excellently together,’ adds Werner Rosenberger, Plant Manager at ALPLA Steinabrückl. Another advantage is that the two companies are in the direct vicinity of one another as short routes are a key aspect of this concept.
