'ARTMENT OF COMMERCE ASHINGT OFFICIA POSTAGE AND F cubic inch for a quart, but I am interested in getting equal from whichever producer I decide to buy. My performan ments, therefore, are not very precise when I say equal quar science and technology have made it possible for you to req sion of the industries with which you deal. When I see you amendments to tolerances on the average capacity of milk following sort of naive questions come to my mind: Why milk bottles? I hardly see them any mor All my milk comes in paper containers. What a these fellows trying to get at here? It must be th some people buy milk in bottles and that there is tendency to skimp on the bottle size by some pr ducers. Or maybe it is that the dairies are complai ing about the bottle manufacturers, because a litt more milk in a couple of thousand bottles could mal a difference to a diary when it does not make an to me as a consumer. I honestly do not know the issue here, and I purposely d Mac Jensen about this before I wrote this, because I wante a naive approach. I wanted to be naive because I wante what performance purpose was served here in order to think about performance standards and weights and meas You will remember that I suggested earlier that governme set true performance standards based on user requiremen industry do the engineering to find solutions. My underst your procedures is that it does this by design. Your pe standard is basically that milk bottles be uniform in size leave it to industry groups to determine what uniformity it would be possible or desirable to obtain. The caution I gest is that each section of your model laws take pains to po underlying performance standard implicit in that law in the specification which emerges or the design requirements w out of the performance standards do not become gospel, be gospel tends to freeze the technology at a particular point of Well, from what I have seen of your organization in th years that I have been associated with the National Bureau ards, I am certain that you are a dynamic one. You wou be for as many of you to get to Denver under these circums know you will want to do the best job possible, given the pr of science and technology. That is why I have tried to give feeling for an important direction in which I think we are g engineering standards, and that is the direction of the de of true performance standards. I wish you well in the of your meeting, and I thank you for inviting me to partic morning in your Conference. Because they provide a basis for sound or equitable judgment between alternatives, performance standards should be a tool of governments at the Federal, State, or local level when matters of public health, safety, or welfare are involved. Governments need not develop these standards, but I would argue that they have a responsibility, as a public trust, to assure the development of adequate performance standards and associated test methods in those areas which involve health, safety, and welfare. I believe, in fact, that true performance standards are the most democratic basis we have for assuring the public interest while allowing private enterprise to seek alternative design or engineering solutions through competition. I have sometimes been surprised at the way that private industry has resisted this shift to performance standards. It is not too surprising if a company that produces a single building material resists changing a building code that gives it a certain amount of market protection. But there are not many one-material companies of any size left. Most of them have diversified into new areas, and most of them claim to be doing research. Outdated specification type building codes, therefore, also make it difficult for this same company to introduce its own new innovations. I am confident that in the next few years most companies will come to realize that free competition in the market place is to their own long-term interest. As this begins to be realized, there will be even more interest in developing good building codes based on true performance standards, and our Institute for Applied Technology in the National Bureau of Standards wants to help in this area. Well, what does all of this mean to those of you who are involved in weights and measures? I think it means that you should not be sitting there dreaming with me about performance standards for buildings or automobile safety if you are not willing to look at yourselves. I think it means some changes for you in the next few years, just as it means changes for the rest of our friends in industry and government. You have been in business for a long time, longer than the National Bureau of Standards. During that time, the science and technology of measurement has gone through many changes. Only a century ago, we were lucky if we could get a bushel in New York to equal a bushel in Pennsylvania. Now your calibration tools are so accurate that you probably exceed the practical ability of the normal small businessman or his customers to fully utilize the accuracy you can demand of his weights and measures. I know we do in the Bureau. I doubt that extremes of accuracy very often come into your practice. But these are areas in which you are involved. Since I am a novice in your area, I can speak frankly. So let me. I read last night the proposed standard for milk bottles. It seems to me that as a consumer, I am not so much concerned that the container in which I buy milk be held to tolerances of nine-tenths of a T OF COMMERCE POSTAGE ARTM cubic inch for a quart, but I am interested in getting from whichever producer I decide to buy. My perfo ments, therefore, are not very precise when I say equa science and technology have made it possible for you sion of the industries with which you deal. When I se amendments to tolerances on the average capacity of following sort of naive questions come to my mind: Why milk bottles? I hardly see them an All my milk comes in paper containers. W these fellows trying to get at here? It must some people buy milk in bottles and that th tendency to skimp on the bottle size by so ducers. Or maybe it is that the dairies are co ing about the bottle manufacturers, because more milk in a couple of thousand bottles cou a difference to a diary when it does not ma to me as a consumer. I honestly do not know the issue here, and I purpo Mac Jensen about this before I wrote this, because I a naive approach. I wanted to be naive because I what performance purpose was served here in ord think about performance standards and weights and You will remember that I suggested earlier that gov set true performance standards based on user requ industry do the engineering to find solutions. My u your procedures is that it does this by design. Y standard is basically that milk bottles be uniform leave it to industry groups to determine what unifo it would be possible or desirable to obtain. The caut gest is that each section of your model laws take pain underlying performance standard implicit in that la the specification which emerges or the design requirem out of the performance standards do not become gos gospel tends to freeze the technology at a particular p Well, from what I have seen of your organization years that I have been associated with the National I ards, I am certain that you are a dynamic one. Yo be for as many of you to get to Denver under these c know you will want to do the best job possible, given of science and technology. That is why I have tried feeling for an important direction in which I think w engineering standards, and that is the direction of of true performance standards. I wish you well i of your meeting, and I thank you for inviting me to morning in your Conference. T AFTERNOON SESSION-TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1966 (M. JENNINGS, Vice Chairman, Presiding) THE PLASTIC BOTTLE FULFILLING PACKAGING NEEDS by W. T. CRUSE, Executive Vice President, Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., New York, New York It's an honor for the Society of the Plastics The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) is The subject for this talk, the plastic bottle, is one of the fastest-growing parts of our industry. It might be best to first define some parameters. The term "plastics" is generally defined as "any one of a large and varied group of materials consisting wholly or in part of combinations of carbon with oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other organic and inorganic elements which, while solid in the finished state, at some stage in its manufacture is made liquid and thus capable of being formed into various shapes, mostly through the application either singly or together of heat and pressure." While plastics is a generic term for materials, there are two basic classifications: thermoset plastics and thermoplastics. Thermoset plastics are those which are set into permanent shape when heat and pressure are applied to them during forming. This category of plastics material is not used in the manufacture of plastic bottles. The thermoplastic family of materials is used in the manufacture of plastic bottles. These materials become soft when exposed to sufficient heat and harden when cooled, no matter how often the process is repeated. Most plastic bottles on the market today are manufactured of thermoplastic materials by the blow molding process. Basically, blow molding consists of extruding a hollow tube of the molten plastic material (called a parison) which is clamped between mold halves and inflated by air. The material is cooled in the mold to retain the desired shape of the mold and then ejected. How did the plastic bottle start? As recently as the mid-Thirties, there was no commercial blow molding of plastic containers or bottles. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN JAD About 1937 an experimental group investigated the feasibility of blow molding new thermoplastic materials including cellulose acetate and styrene. Experimental work brought out the unique personalities of each of the thermoplastics. Gradually, mechanical methods were devised to handle these new materials. This early work demonstrated that it was feasible to produce plastic containers, tubes, and bottles. At that time, however, the price of basic thermoplastic resins was so high that it discouraged commercial application. During World War II, this experimental work had been carried further sufficiently to enable small containers for water purifying tablets to be produced for the Army Medical Corps field kits. This was accomplished in early 1943. The containers were lightweight and particularly desirable because they were durable. Toward the end of World War II, simple household articles such as decorative Christmas tree balls were being made in the United States from blow molded acetate and styrene. After World War II, low-density polyethylene became available to the infant plastic bottle industry. Although the cost of the raw material was still high, polyethylene offered many advantages that the older thermoplastics lacked. It was not brittle, it retained its resil iency even after molding, it had flow characteristics which permitted a new freedom of design for the shape of containers. Early containers blown of this material were put to use as carriers for acids and other industrial products where durability was extremely beneficial. By 1946, technology for blow molding low-density polyethylene had advanced considerably and plastic containers were finding their way to markets in limited quantities for special applications. Government regulations as set by the Interstate Commerce Commission were rewritten to encompass these new containers. This alone required tremendous testing to show Government agencies that the plastic containers were safe and, in most cases, superior containers to those made from conventional materials. Great commercial impetus for the plastic bottle came when the first squeeze bottle was introduced in 1946. Dr. Jules Montenier developed a liquid deodorant which he wished to be applied as a spray. He had developed the spray nozzle, but needed a flexible or bellows-type container to hold the liquid and force it through a spray applicator. He approached the group which had done the experimental work on plastic bottles. This group developed an oval-shape, two-ounce, blow molded polyethylene container to meet his needs. This became the first commercial plastic squeeze bottle. Within two years, five million plastic squeeze bottles of Stopette deodorant had been sold. Repeated mention has been made of thermoplastic material used for plastic bottles. Today, the prime resin for bottle production is polyethylene in its three density ranges: low, medium, and high. How |