Standard fountain bottle
The standard fountain bottle of mineral water or fountain unit bottle (colloquially beads bottle ) is in Germany usual 0.7-liter returnable bottle of clear glass with screw cap for carbonated mineral water , soft drinks and similar beverages.
history
The introduction of the bottle was decided on August 28, 1969 by a committee of 142 representatives of the German mineral water industry at a meeting in Bonn-Bad Godesberg. The decision was preceded by preparatory work of about six months. After there had been considerations in previous years about the introduction of a nationwide reusable bottle, this took shape in March 1969, when several designers were invited to Bonn by representatives of the mineral water industry. The first drafts for the standard bottle were presented on June 19, 1969 in Bonn. At the beginning of August 1969, a few glass prototypes were finally produced, which also met with approval in random consumer surveys.
The bottle came onto the market in Germany in 1969/1970. The reason for the introduction was to enable the providers of such beverages nationwide to have a standardized sales system that could respond to competition from the Coca-Cola Company , which was then increasingly pushing its way into the German market. It is with 0.15 € subject to a deposit .
The main technical innovation was the screw cap . It enables automatic filling with significantly more fillings per hour. At the same time, the number of bottles damaged during filling decreased compared to swing top bottles. In terms of cost-effectiveness, the pearl bottle brought enormous advantages to the mineral fountain, as the number of times the bottles were circulated could be increased: With the same bottle inventory, a mineral fountain was able to carry out a higher number of fillings. This succeeded because the pearl bottle was listed as a nationwide reusable pool from the start. Regardless of where a bottle was bottled, it can be returned to practically any retailer and only needs to be transported back to the nearest bottler.
The standard fountain bottle was designed in 1968 by industrial designer Günter Kupetz . Characteristic of the shape is the constriction in the middle, which enables a secure grip, supplemented by 230 knobs above, which additionally increase the grip and symbolize the gushing of the contents when opening. In the constriction there is a circumferential relief “Deutscher Brunnen” and - surrounded by two logos with the inscription “GDB” for Genossenschaft Deutscher Brunnen - “Leih bottle” or “Mineralbrunnen Mehrweg-Leihrechner” with just one GDB logo. The underlying, cylindrical part of the bottle, which is intended for the labels, is delimited at the top and bottom by two barely noticeable beads that protect the surface of the bottles and the labels during automatic filling and cleaning as well as during transport. At the same time, they are an approximate indicator of how often a bottle has been reused: Over time, dull rings form on the beads through contact with other bottles, which gradually widen as they wear off. When these rings reach a width of several millimeters after about 50 uses, the bottle is rejected.
The standard fountain bottle was featured in the 1999 series of commemorative stamps "Design in Germany". Günter Kupetz was also mentioned there.
From 1971 to 2006 around five billion standard fountain bottles were produced. The bottle deliberately has a capacity of 0.7 liters so that the last remainder of the drink may still contain carbonic acid , which is no longer the case with 1.0 or 1.5 liter bottles due to the more frequent opening and closing processes is.
In 1983, a green glass bottle was introduced for still mineral water with a simpler shape without a constriction and a capacity of 0.75 liters.
Since 1996 there have been reusable bottles based on the design by Kupetz made of the plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in various sizes from 0.5 to 1.5 liters. They are considerably lighter than the standard fountain bottles, each weighing 600 grams, but can only be filled about 15 to 25 times. The standard fountain bottle and the green 0.75 liter bottle can be reused up to 50 times.
The plastic boxes have about 100 uses until they can no longer be used and are recycled as plastic .
Web links
- Design classic pearl bottle on the website of the German Wells Cooperative
literature
- Marcus Botsch : Günter Kupetz's mineral water bottle . Publishing house Form, Frankfurt a. M. 1999, ISBN 3-89802-003-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Georg Schwedt: On the history and chemistry of mineral waters , ISBN 978-3752842906 limited preview in the Google book search
- ↑ It runs and runs and runs! - Germany's most famous beverage bottle is celebrating its 50th birthday. Genossenschaft Deutscher Brunnen eG, accessed on August 27, 2019 (detailed information in the "Pressemappe_50_Jahre_Perlenverkauf.zip").
- ↑ cf. http://www.prophila.de/images/stk/b/B26715z.jpg
- ↑ Data: Reusable in the mineral water industry ( Memento from January 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (as of 2013), German Wells Cooperative (GDB), accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ One bottle - many faces , GDB, accessed December 18, 2015
