February 25, 2025 15:28

California-based Origin Materials has officially begun industrial production of PET bottle closures at its Reed City, Michigan, facility following the successful validation of its proprietary CapFormer technology.

"Producing PET closures at commercial volumes, on the first Origin CapFormer System, in our production center in Michigan is just an awesome milestone in bringing our breakthrough caps to market," said John Bissell, CEO and co-founder of Origin Materials. "The sky is the limit as we begin to address the $65 billion closures opportunity."

For now, the new PCO 1881 PET caps enable the production of monomaterial bottles (excluding the label), making recycling easier at the end of their life cycle.

"Market interest and the strength of the overall demand for our caps continue to suggest we will be able to sell every cap we can make," Bissell said. "We have multiple MOUs signed, with a growing list of prospects in the qualification phase and a growing pipeline of new potential customers. We're looking forward to announcing additional MOUs along with customer names in the coming months."

The CapFormer process relies on thermoforming a PET sheet—either virgin or recycled—followed by a cutting and folding phase. According to Origin Materials, this high-speed process achieves an impressive 98% production efficiency.

In May of last year, the company signed an agreement with Swiss group Bachmann to expand PET cap production to Europe.

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