BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) has filed a patent application for the manufacturing process used to produce milk and yoghurt beverage bottles using impact resistant PS. The first such container was showcased at K 2007 by BASF and Alpla-Werke Lehner (Hard / Austria; www.alpla.com), with which it had joined forces in demonstrating that polystyrene provides an inexpensive alternative for packaging for this sector.

BASF’s PS type BX 3580 – which was optimised for the application – can be processed by injection blow moulding and injection stretch blow moulding on the same machines used for PET. The process offers a number of advantages to packaging manufacturers as the lower density of PS in comparison to PET can cut material costs by up to 25%, less compressed air is used in manufacturing and, unlike PET, the polystyrene does not have to be pre-dried.