November 14, 2024

A container for liquids such as milk, soda, motor oil and shampoo or for dry products such as medications and nutritional supplements. Bottles are manufactured from a variety of materials and go through a number of production processes before they reach store shelves.

From Middle English bottel, from Old French botel and Latin bouticula (diminutive of buttis), from a diminutive of a Latin word meaning ‘cask.’ The word was originally used to describe a flask, but now it applies to any container of liquid.

In the glass industry, a bottle is generally considered to be any hollow, cylindrical vessel made from transparent or translucent, non-metallic material that is shaped by pressing it into an inverted mold. The finished container is then filled with the desired product and sealed, allowing it to be transported, stored and handled easily. Bottles are often designed with specific features for ease of use, including neck or mouth openings, bottle caps and labeling.

The primary raw materials used to make bottles are petrochemicals, which can be refined into ethylene or propylene and then turned into plastic pellets. From here, the plastic can be formed into containers for liquids like milk and soda or dry goods such as motor oil and shampoo.

Different types of plastics have distinct properties that lend them to certain applications. For example, polyethylene terephthalate (resin identification code 1) is commonly used for carbonated drinks and water bottles due to its light weight and high strength-to-density ratio. PET is produced by combining ethylene glycol, a colorless viscous hygroscopic liquid and terephthalic acid, an organic compound that polymerizes to form long molecular chains.

Other plastics can be molded into bottles using different manufacturing techniques. For example, extrusion blow molding can be used to produce a wide range of shapes and sizes for liquids. This process involves a three-step sequence: heating the plastic into a long tube known as a parison, inflating it with compressed air to create a preform, and blow molding the preform into the final bottle shape.

For bottles that require a thicker wall or greater structural integrity, other forming methods are used. Reheat blow molding and co-extrusion blow molding can help manufacturers produce thicker walls, and injection molding is a good choice for producing bottles with complex shapes or smaller volume capacities.

Regardless of the type of plastic or manufacturing technique, all bottles are subject to quality assurance and inspection before they leave the factory. This ensures that each bottle meets established standards for consistency, safety and durability.

The bottle is also commonly decorated with text or designs. These can be applied by screen printing, hot stamping or embossing the bottle body or base. More information on these decorative finishes can be found on the Bottle Body & Mold Seams page. In addition to the decorative finishes mentioned above, bottles can also be embossed or etched with the name or logo of a brand. See the Embossing & Etching page for more details.

The work we do isn’t just about paychecks, benefits, or a career path. It also changes us. From the discipline we learn to develop, the wisdom, and skill from mentors and positions, to the passions it fuels or snuffs out and the relationships it creates, our jobs are part of who we are. They’re not just part of our identity and character; they shape the very fabric of our lives, our values, beliefs, and even our personality.

The scientific definition of work explains how it can be transferred to an object: the product of a force and a displacement (or a change in position). It’s important to note that this is not a constant-force/distance relationship; the relative directions of the force and the displacement determine whether the work done is positive, negative, or zero.

When we think of work, we generally imagine a physical exertion of some kind: a horse pulling a plow in a field, a parent pushing a stroller down the aisle of a grocery store, a weightlifter lifting a barbell above their head, or an Olympian throwing a shot-put. However, these examples are not true work according to the scientific definition, because they don’t involve a change in an object’s state or direction.

An object must be displaced for work to happen, and this is why many things we commonly consider to be work are not actually work according to the scientific definition. For an action to be considered work, it must have a force and cause a displacement, and this is why a person climbing a ladder does not count as work – the height gained is not an appropriate change in the position of the body.

In addition, the force must be proportional to the displacement. The SI unit for work is the joule, named after English physicist James Prescott Joule (1818-1889). Other units of work include the newton-metre, the foot-pound, the foot-poundal, the erg, and the kilocalorie.

The future of work is about moving beyond the narrow confines of traditional, structured job descriptions that define and limit how we perform our work to more open-ended, creative opportunities for identifying, solving, and implementing unseen problems/opportunities, which can be both rewarding and challenging. It will be work that requires a new type of collaboration, one that allows us to see the bigger picture and to work together to achieve it.

Ideally, this new type of work will provide a balance between the parts of our jobs that we enjoy (e.g., interacting with customers or colleagues) and the parts that we don’t enjoy as much (e.g., updating Excel files or sitting in on conference calls with our managers). It will also require the willingness to take risks and the ability to change. Changing how we do our work takes time and effort, and it’s not easy to get right. But if we do, the rewards can be enormous. We’ll be able to do more work than ever before, and we’ll have a much better chance of finding a job that we love.