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Countryside, IL (USA). June, 2009. The Beverage Industries Sustainable Packaging efforts have driven the weight of a 500 ml water bottle down to 9.0 grams and the Nalbach NECOSORT-III new generation unscrambler has met the challenge with its superior lightweight bottle handling capabilities. With the beverage industry’s push to “lightweight” bottles in an effort to reduce cost and reduce their ecological footprint, traditional methods for placing bottles onto a production line such as depalletizing-single filing or the use of older technology unscramblers has become problematic. Going back 15 years, most bottling companies would use depalletizing systems to introduce empty bottles to the filling line. At the time, 500 ml CSD bottle weights were in the 35-40 gram range and 500 ml water bottles were in the 23–28 gram range. As lightweighting began in the late 1990s, depalletizing of bottles proved to be inefficient with fallen bottles being a significant problem. Bottle unscramblers were introduced to eliminate the problem of trying to maintain bottle orientation off the depalletizer. With an unscrambler it didn’t matter if the bottles fell over during the depalletizing process. From the depalletizer, the bottles would be conveyed in mass to the unscrambler, which had the responsibility of orienting the bottles in an upright position. Recently, bottle lightweighting efforts have increased with the beverage industry’s sustainable packaging efforts. Subsequently PET bottle weights have been significantly reduced. Over the last 3 years 500 ml water bottle weights have gone from ~15 grams to 9 grams. Older generation unscramblers have had problems handling such lightweight bottles as they rely heavily on gravity in the unscrambling process. The design of the new generation NECOSORT-III unscrambler insures that bottles are positively held, moved and controlled throughout the unscrambling process and do not rely solely on gravity. This provides a system that reliably handles the lightest bottles in use today. In addition to its lightweight bottle capabilities, the NECOSORT-III is capable of sorting a wide range of bottle types and sizes. The unique vertical drum design, has only 2 moving parts, is tolerant of damaged bottles and has the smallest footprint in the industry. With no reciprocating motions, complicated mechanisms, or hard to adjust container handling parts the NECOSORT-III provides low maintenance, high reliability and carries a three (3) year warranty! The NECOSORT-III is available worldwide through Nalbach’s direct sales and manufacturers reps. ### About Nalbach Engineering Company |
