California native and Inventor Mark Costello, who works at a local winery driving a forklift, has reverse-engineered a standard shipping method for bottles, jars, and cans to production facilities in the U.S. and abroad.
Riverbank CA – The standard method of shipping bulk bottles, cans, and jars after production is to strap and stretch wrap the pallet before it is shipped to the customer. Costello noticed how much plastic and strapping he was throwing away after each production run and started the process of designing and patenting his version of how bottles, jars and cans should be stabilized before shipment.
Costello also noticed that when a trailer full of glass came into the winery to be unloaded, the glass stacks required up to eleven airbags to hold them in place. Costello Said, “My shipping method will truly make producing single use containers of any material environmentally sustainable and will eliminate the need for stretchwrap and airbags currently being used by these facilities.”
Benefits of the Reusable Bottle Shipping System
Costello notes that a stretch-wrapped pallet of bulk glass creates three pounds of plastic, while the shroud type creates six pounds. Listed below are the benefits.
Glass Plants:
Faster assembly time – Stretch wrap machines are slow and are not environmentally sustainable. An assembly machine could be designed for automatic or semi-automatic assembly.
Completely enclosed – Costello’s system creates a cube environment for bulk glass which has interlocking features at the bottom of each panel. This feature eliminates the need for airbags, which are used to isolate the pallets while in transit to customers.
Bottling Facilities:
Easy for customers to work with – When a trailer of glass is docked, most of the time, it will contain eleven airbags, which is a time waster for the driver and needless when there are better ways to restrain bulk glass, Costello notes. No airbags are needed if his method is used. The method interlocks front to back and side to side. Put a cargo lock in the back and you’re done, he notes.
Panels remove quickly – When a driver sets a unit on the line, removing my panels is quick and easy. The worker pops off the cap with his suction device while prying the lid open with a lightweight pry bar. The lid stays suspended until the panels are removed and placed on a pallet designed to accept the panels in an upright position, which is achieved by the design of designated holes in the pallet. The lid is placed back on the stack where the slip sheet suction device takes the lid and stacks it on a pallet.
Panels and lids – When the pallet fills up with panels, they simply get shipped back to the glass plant with the lids to be used again.
“I understand the magnitude of change I am requesting of these facilities, but given the massive amount of waste they are creating on a daily basis, am I asking too much?” he concluded.
Costello is currently looking for a licensee or investor that shares his passion for reusable packaging and a factory that to participate in the project.
To find out more, visit https://isplasticnecessary.com/