O-I receives Scottish sustainability honors

O-I

The award was presented jointly to O-I and Edrington for the two companies' achievement in creating the lightest ever embossed glass bottle for a premium Scotch whisky. It was accepted by Scott Gibb, Scottish Sales Manager for O-I and Mike Rose, Technical Services Director at Edrington at Edinburgh Castle.
The 340g development for The Famous Grouse was successfully produced at Alloa and is a breakthrough in the industry, which typically sees premium bottles weighing 400g and above. The lighter containers preserve raw materials and mean less energy is consumed in production and transportation. This has a direct benefit in terms of carbon emissions. If the new weight was adopted throughout the whisky industry in Scotland, it would save 58,000 tonnes of glass a year.

Scott Gibb says, "This project is an excellent example of customer -centric innovation and the award is a great accolade for O-I's development and manufacturing teams. They refused to accept the industry norms and we are grateful for a client who was prepared to push the boundaries. Winning a Green Apple recognises the steps the company is taking to continuously improve the sustainability of glass packaging. Getting containers to the optimum weight is just one of the ways we can do this, along with increasing the recycled glass content of our bottles and improving furnace design and performance."

The UK Green Apple Awards were launched in 1994, but this is the first time there has been a separate event for Scotland. Winning is restricted to companies, councils and communities that can demonstrate the effective measures they have introduced for environmental benefit. For further information and a selection of high resolution and web optimised images please contact Philip Tutt at 360 Integrated on:

Source: Owens-Illinois Inc.
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