Origin Materials begins commercial production of PET caps

Origin Materials recently commenced the commercial production of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle caps at its manufacturing center in Reed City, Michigan.

The West Sacramento, California-based company anticipates its PCO 1881-compliant caps to be “transformative” for the packaging industry, unlocking the performance advantages and recyclability available with the use of PET caps. Beyond the 1881 format, Origin says its technology platform for producing PET caps is positioned to improve the sustainability and performance of a wide variety of packaging solutions, both existing and new.

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“Achieving this milestone is a tremendous accomplishment and we couldn’t be prouder,” Origin CEO and co-founder John Bissell says. “Producing PET closures at commercial volumes, on the first Oigin CapFormer system, in our production center in Michigan is just an awesome milestone in bringing our breakthrough caps to market.

“This first CapFormer line is meeting all of our expectations and is expected to produce hundreds of millions of PET caps each year. We are continually improving our technologies and manufacturing process techniques so that future lines will have even higher production rates and even better unit economics. The sky is the limit as we begin to address the $65 billion closures opportunity.”

Bissell says market interest and the strength of the overall demand for Origin’s caps continues to suggest the company will be able to sell every cap it can make. He adds that the company has multiple memorandums of understanding signed and a growing list of prospects in the qualification phase, as well as a growing pipeline of new potential customers.

“We are excited for what’s to come,” Bissell says. “Our manufacturing team and production partners in Michigan, Reed City Group, have been doing excellent work. Looking ahead, we expect to ramp the production volume of line 1 over time and with additional CapFormer systems being manufactured and tested concurrently with the startup of line 1. As previously indicated, we’ll be bringing additional CapFormer systems online throughout 2025.”