The GlacierPak®
IceRok’s® innovative flexible GlacierPak® provides an exciting solution and alternative to the bottled water and beverage industry. Extensive research and development has been conducted by IceRok® on its flexible GlacierPak® because water (especially IceRok’s® unique natural artesian glacier water that has been isolated and protected for 20,000 years) is very hard to package because of the amount of active ions in the water.
As you are probably aware, when placing a plastic PET water bottle on the back seat of your car in the heat of the summer leads to an unpleasant taste. Unfortunately it’s not just the taste that’s a problem but more importantly it’s the leaching of dangerous toxins into the water from the PET container that is most alarming.
IceRok® isn't exposed To The Atmosphere Until You Open The Top 20,000 Years Later
IceRok® utilizes a 3 layer non leaching composite for its flexible GlacierPak® which has 20 times the oxygen barrier of the standard 6 mil PET bottle or a value of 0.05 cc/100si/atm/24hrs. This highly effective barrier protects the contents much better and provides an extended shelf life as a result. Due to the proprietary nature of IceRok’s GlacierPak® composition, we cannot disclose the chemical makeup. We can tell you that there is no Bisphenol A (BPA) or DEHA in any of the components and that the interior lining is a molecular altered composite specifically designed and engineered to the unique characteristics of IceRok’s® subterranean artesian glacier water source. No BPA, no DEHA, no leaching, no chemical transfer, longer shelf life, and IceRok’s GlacierPak® can be frozen and heated to extreme temperatures without any affect to the water.
From an environmental aspect, IceRok’s® GlacierPak® provides a substantial advantage over the standard plastic PET bottle. The GlacierPak® requires substantially less energy to produce and transport and uses up to 50% less material than an equivalent PET container. Because IceRok® utilizes a blown film for its GlacierPak®, there are no huge amounts of water wasted as there is in the manufacturing of plastic PET bottles.
Plastic beverage containers are widely used as a means for containing water, carbonated beverages, alcohol, juices, and a variety of other beverage substances. Plastic containers have replaced glass containers for many commercial and residential purposes because they are generally lighter in weight and more shatter-resistant than are many glass containers. One material commonly used in plastic beverage containers, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), has been found to provide enhanced clarity, recyclability, and ease of manufacture at a competitive price.
While the use of plastic for beverage bottles has proved commercially viable, the widespread use of plastic beverage bottles has resulted in a large volume of waste that must be recycled, treated in a land fill, incinerated, or otherwise managed after use of the bottles. Semi-rigid or "firm" plastic containers made of PET, such as carbonated beverage containers, generally occupy the same volumetric space whether empty or full, and are often not easily compressed after use. Even when partially compressed, these bottles do not easily collapse completely, resulting in a large, empty volume within the plastic containers that consumes unnecessary space when the container is discarded.
In addition, many conventional beverage bottles must be shipped empty to a filling facility where the bottles are filled with the beverage. As such, the bottles often must be cleaned at the filling facility, and rinsed thoroughly to ensure that all cleaning materials/chemicals are removed from the bottles, prior to filling the bottles with the beverage. Also, in many cases, these beverage containers must be labeled after filling (or very shortly before filling), in a facility separate from the one in which the containers were manufactured.
Also, when drinking water is provided to consumers in beverage containers, issues with transparency of packaging, and taste migration from the packaging to the beverage (water) being contained, are greatly enhanced in comparison to other beverages. For example, many juices and sports drinks exhibit a sufficiently robust color that soft bottles that are meant to be transparent may not need to be perfectly transparent, as the juice or other drink is not itself transparent and thereby masks imperfections in the packaging. Also, juices and sports drinks generally exhibit a sufficiently robust taste such that migration of minor amounts of taste from the packaging into the juice or sports drink may not be detectable by most consumers. However, due to the exceptional clarity and subtle taste of drinking water, even the slightest cloudiness present in packaging, or the slightest migration of taste from packaging, can generally be detected by most consumers, and can leave them with a negative impression of the product.
The GlacierPak® provides many advantages over conventional beverage container systems. For example, as the containers can be shipped to a filling facility in a reduced volume state (e.g., a generally "flat" configuration), the costs of shipping empty containers can be reduced and the efficiencies can be increased. Also, in the embodiments of the GlacierPak® in which a unidirectional valve is incorporated into the container, internal portions of the container can be maintained in a clean state from the point in time in which the container is manufactured to the point it is filled with a beverage. In this manner, the present containers need not be cleaned at the filling location, leading to great cost savings at the filling site. As a result, the filling plant used for the GlacierPak® container can be up to 1/5 smaller than an equivalent plant used for conventional bottles
In addition, the GlacierPak® is generally much easier to transport and store than conventional bottles, as it will "form-fit" to a pocket, backpack, purse, glove-box, etc., in which the GlacierPak® is stored.
Also, label information such as branding, content information, nutritional information, etc., can be applied to the GlacierPak® at the time of forming the GlacierPak®. This aspect can completely eliminate the step of applying a label to the container, which is necessary in most conventional processes. Also, as the label information is applied directly to the present GlacierPak® (or within two layers of material), the risk of having the label fall off the packaging, or become illegible, is greatly reduced with the present system.
