On my desk sits a bottle. Not always the same bottle but always a clear Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle into which I decant water from a communal water cooler every morning which I then proceed to imbibe during the course of the working day.
Now, after a period of time, I have to replace this bottle as I find that a slightly solvent like aroma arises from the chemical breakdown of the plastics therein.
My hunch has always been that this process is much exacerbated by exposure to ultraviolet light but little did I realise this Saturday afternoon, as I left Budgens with the weekly shop, that I was on the cusp of having my theory confirmed during a visit to a Trowbridge pub where I was to have a chance encounter with one of Britain's leading fonts of packaging related knowledge.
The Dusthole was unusually empty for a Saturday afternoon save for a figure at the bar who was hunched over his pint deep in conversation with himself.
On hearing me enter the bar, he turned to greet me and introduced himself as Martin Haggage, travelling sales rep for Linpac Rigid Plastic Containers Ltd.
He then informed me with a broad sweep of his hand indicating the multifarious bottles, boxes and cartons lined up behind the bar, that he had a story to tell about every item of packaging on display in that pub.
And indeed he did; no sooner had my bottle of Wadsworth's Bishops Tipple been placed in front of me than a quick fumble in his pocket and a flutter produced a set of cards detailing the permissable colour range in the red spectrum for that particular label.
This colour range was barely discernible to the untrained eye and I immediately realised that I was in the company of a man possessed with an extraordinary gift.
Impressed, I pulled up a stool and made myself comfortable and listened to Martin talk about his involvement in R&D on the Copperhead Cider project two decades earlier.
Martin's tales of the early days of the project conjured up images of pipe smoking boffins poring over drawing boards as they pooled their collective wisdom to overcome a particularly thorny problem.
The cap (or closure, as Martin constantly corrected me ) was to be in the shape of the head of a copperhead nail and the dimensions of this unorthodox closure were not compatible with the exisiting
bottling rig. The Genius of their solution lies in its simplicity. Essentially the cap fitting was to become a 2 stage process with a normal ribbed closure being machine attached with the copperhead
being fitted over the top of the closure at a later stage.
Gratefully accepting the offer of a pint, I listened to Martin describe the revolution in packaging that was the PET bottle.
Completely unbreakable, he insisted, for their weak point is the cap and no matter from what height the bottle is dropped, it's always the cap that goes first.
Indeed, this is a routine quality control test performed in packaging labs up and down the country. Martin also will often take a cross section of a bottle and measure its thickness with a paris of calipers as too thin a gauge can cause the bottle
to balloon when filled with liquid, particularly under pressure.
My head swimming with all these packaging facts (not to mention the Bishop's Tipple) it was as I was walking up to the Legion to meet the wife that I realised I had completely
forgotten to ask Martin to confirm my theory on the role of UV light in the degredation of PET bottles, so the mystery continues for the time being.
Now, after a period of time, I have to replace this bottle as I find that a slightly solvent like aroma arises from the chemical breakdown of the plastics therein.
My hunch has always been that this process is much exacerbated by exposure to ultraviolet light but little did I realise this Saturday afternoon, as I left Budgens with the weekly shop, that I was on the cusp of having my theory confirmed during a visit to a Trowbridge pub where I was to have a chance encounter with one of Britain's leading fonts of packaging related knowledge.
The Dusthole was unusually empty for a Saturday afternoon save for a figure at the bar who was hunched over his pint deep in conversation with himself.
On hearing me enter the bar, he turned to greet me and introduced himself as Martin Haggage, travelling sales rep for Linpac Rigid Plastic Containers Ltd.
He then informed me with a broad sweep of his hand indicating the multifarious bottles, boxes and cartons lined up behind the bar, that he had a story to tell about every item of packaging on display in that pub.
And indeed he did; no sooner had my bottle of Wadsworth's Bishops Tipple been placed in front of me than a quick fumble in his pocket and a flutter produced a set of cards detailing the permissable colour range in the red spectrum for that particular label.
This colour range was barely discernible to the untrained eye and I immediately realised that I was in the company of a man possessed with an extraordinary gift.
Impressed, I pulled up a stool and made myself comfortable and listened to Martin talk about his involvement in R&D on the Copperhead Cider project two decades earlier.
Martin's tales of the early days of the project conjured up images of pipe smoking boffins poring over drawing boards as they pooled their collective wisdom to overcome a particularly thorny problem.
The cap (or closure, as Martin constantly corrected me ) was to be in the shape of the head of a copperhead nail and the dimensions of this unorthodox closure were not compatible with the exisiting
bottling rig. The Genius of their solution lies in its simplicity. Essentially the cap fitting was to become a 2 stage process with a normal ribbed closure being machine attached with the copperhead
being fitted over the top of the closure at a later stage.
Gratefully accepting the offer of a pint, I listened to Martin describe the revolution in packaging that was the PET bottle.
Completely unbreakable, he insisted, for their weak point is the cap and no matter from what height the bottle is dropped, it's always the cap that goes first.
Indeed, this is a routine quality control test performed in packaging labs up and down the country. Martin also will often take a cross section of a bottle and measure its thickness with a paris of calipers as too thin a gauge can cause the bottle
to balloon when filled with liquid, particularly under pressure.
My head swimming with all these packaging facts (not to mention the Bishop's Tipple) it was as I was walking up to the Legion to meet the wife that I realised I had completely
forgotten to ask Martin to confirm my theory on the role of UV light in the degredation of PET bottles, so the mystery continues for the time being.
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