— By Plasteurope.com correspondent — 

South Korean resin maker SK Chemicals (SKC, Seoul; www.skchemicals.com) says it has launched a new copolyester product, Ecotria Claro 300, which is transparent, chemical resistant, and, due to its high viscosity, suitable for extrusion blow moulding (EBM).

According to the company, the new material lent itself to the production of containers, particularly those that needed to be transparent, such as large water bottles, juice, and beverages. 

Kim Eung-soo, head of SKC’s green materials business, said typical transparent materials like PET and copolyester “lack the heat resistance and viscosity required for high-temperature EBM moulding conditions, so opaque materials such as PP and PE have been mainly used for large-capacity container materials”.

He added, “We anticipate Ecotria Claro 300, which can be processed with EBM and easily recycled, as it’s classified as PET, will quickly replace the large-capacity container market where transparency is required.”

Related: SKC breaks ground on new biodegradable plastics plant in Vietnam

SKC is also harnessing its Ecotria Claro copolyesters as part of a collaboration with cosmetic packaging firm Toly (Zejtun, Malta; www.toly.com), which supplies product containers for luxury cosmetic brands across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Unveiling a new cosmetic compact container made with Ecotria Claro at the recent Luxe show in Monaco, SKC said that after an earlier project created a product with 50% recycled material content last year, it had increased the recycled content to 70% this year.