Cutting carbon footprint of large drums benefits environment and bottom line

By Karen Hanna

Hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of materials. One-million-plus kilowatts (kW) of electricity.

Sustainability efforts can add up to big numbers — and huge savings, according to Aleksandr Kharazov, regional sales manager, ST BlowMoulding USA.

While going green might have lost some of its luster in the U.S., due to political trends over the past year or so, demand for sustainability is still strong in Asia and Europe. And its benefits — regardless of one’s political views — are obvious, according to Kharazov.

In a conference room crowded with participants at the 40th Annual Blow Molding Conference in September in Pittsburgh, he compared the effects of greenhouse gases to being in an unventilated space sucking up oxygen — eventually, it gets uncomfortable.

“Atmosphere stays and doesn't dissipate for hundreds of years. We produce most carbon dioxide because of our human activities. Small piece by small piece, we have created alarming amounts of carbon dioxide,” he said. 

But concern about emissions shouldn’t be limited to environmentalists. Another factor — also green —comes into play: Money.

And blow molders can save a lot, according to Kharazov. 

“I always say that skepticism is not a strategy; innovation is,” Kharazov said. “You can believe in climate change and bad influence of carbon footprint, or you can deny it. But the undeniable and proven fact is that the same features and strategies that reduce carbon footprint on blow molding machines [lead] to the higher machine efficiency, improved process control and higher profitability of your business.” 

Citing projects involving his company and a customer making 55-gallon drums, Kharazov talked about the benefits of a number of strategies, including optimizing processes, limiting energy loss and lightweighting parts. 

Wired for change 

While manufacturers can adopt greener practices with the equipment they have on hand, one of the most consequential changes they can make is when they upgrade their processing machines. Modern blow molders — especially all-electrics — provide across-the-board benefits for conserving electricity, lightweighting and meeting other sustainability benchmarks. 

Though new equipment, with hardware elements for process control, is expensive, Kharazov said in an email, “the ROI numbers are speaking for themselves.” 

“Modern electric machines that monitor and optimize their energy use are a key step toward lower carbon emissions,” he said. 

He acknowledged that all-electrics are not always the go-to. But, even when processors favor hydraulics, especially when selecting bigger machines, they can reap green rewards with newer models.

Machine intelligence is key, because energy consumption is just one consideration when it comes to going green.

Up-to-date monitoring technologies also can help users identify issues and optimize their processes, while the latest flow meters can ensure efficient mold cooling, Kharazov said.

“The machine must be intelligent enough and guarantee you process stability and consistency. So, the machine must be able to process all the data, about the energy consumption, about raw material consumption, to communicate it with you, to alarm you if something goes wrong, and to give you full control of the process,” he said. “I'm talking hardware and software.” 

The advantages of using new machine vs. an older one were evident when ST BlowMoulding compared two machines at a customer’s plant in Europe: a machine installed in 2020 and a 1993 model. Over a year, the new machine consumed 600,000 kW of energy, while the old machine, “without all the modern bells and whistles,” needed about 2 million, Kharazov said.

With its Industry 4.0 tools, he said, the new machine was more efficient and accurate, so it produced fewer rejects. With those capabilities, “we save approximately 30 tons of CO2 in one year just by applying the right process of analytics and making the machine intelligent.” 

But that’s not all. 

“Comparing to the old equipment we were able to save approximately 10 percent of weight,” he said.

That amounted to annual savings of about 335 tons of raw material, 219,000 kilowatt hours (kWh), and assuming each ton of material results in 1.8 pounds of C02 emissions, 603 tons of C02.

Ideal for producing drums and intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) from recycled materials in both continuous and discontinuous processes, ST Blowmoulding’s newest machine, theCXT 810 HT CoEx 3 for 220-liter L-ring drum production, demonstrates some of these advantages, according to a company whitepaper. It boasts a multi-toggle full-electric clamping unit, developed in 2020, energy-efficient ABB SynRM motors and a fully electric three-layer extrusion head, in collaboration with W. Müller. For high-precision wall thickness distribution, it employs a fully electric PWDS system from Feuerherm. 

In addition to providing its energy-efficient machines, ST Blowmoulding also makes existing machines more efficient by performing retrofits on machines offered by the company and competitors.

“Through comprehensive electronic and software upgrades, ST has revitalized both its own legacy machines and those of other manufacturers — across single-head and dual-head configurations,” the company states in the whitepaper. 

Minimizing heat loss 

While new machines can offer immediate and impressive benefits, they aren’t the only way to get greener. Other strategies to lower carbon footprint include minimizing heat loss and reducing part weight. 

“We start with heat insulation of the plasticizing units, the extruders, the heads. We do not spread the heat into the environment, and we don't waste additional energy to keep the components of the machine hot,” Kharazov said. 

According to its whitepaper, ST BlowMoulding has been pursuing this strategy for more than a decade. It says:

“As early as 2012, it became the first — and remains the only — blow molding machinery manufacturer to implement adiabatic extruders on a large scale. Thanks to a specially engineered screw and barrel design, these extruders enable gentle plasticizing without melt overheating, eliminating the need for cooling fans. Moreover, the double-layer insulation around the barrel reduces heat dissipation by up to 10 times compared to conventional extruders.” 

Less is more  

Reducing part weight is another strategy that can lead to big savings, Kharazov said. Sometimes, cutting up to 10 percent is possible, as ST BlowMoulding achieved in one of its projects. However, in an email, he said, “usually the numbers are more conservative (3 to 5 percent). Yet the bigger the part, the more impact [of] even the slightest weight reduction.”

Foaming technology and radial control over points along the parison — both offered as part of ST BlowMoulding technologies — can help blow molders better control the amount of material they use.

“You must have a great number of master points to control the profile so we can adjust thickness quick enough in many points. Obviously, a radial thickness control solution is highly welcome,” Kharazov said. 

The ST BlowMoulding PowerPoint presentation states: "The better you can control the parison thickness during the extrusion, the lighter the blow molded item will be."

By using less material, blow molders greatly reduce their footprint, because plastic production emits significant amounts of CO₂. Such a reduction in material also means blow molders need less energy to melt and form it, Kharazov said. 

In one energy- and material-optimization case, ST BlowMoulding optimized the production of a 55-gallon drum. Initially, its net weight was 20.7 pounds. A customer was making 228,000 of the drums a year, using 3,351.6 tons of HDPE. But ST BlowMoulding cut the net weight down to 18.6 pounds. The original process consumed almost 2.2 million kW a year; ST BlowMoulding cut that down to just less than 670,000 kWh. Applying the formula that each kWh accounts for 0.5 pound of CO₂ emissions, ST BlowMoulding's approach was responsible for 167.2 tons of CO₂ a year, compared with 547.4 tons of CO₂ produced by the other approach. 

Efficiency pays dividends 

Though he’s been in the industry only about five years, Kharazov already has plenty of familiarity with the myriad benefits of going green — his company has been working with customers for years to reduce their footprint. 

“In the last four years, we have made over 50 container optimizations with our clients. So, we have saved them every year, nine and a half thousand tons of material and also a decent amount of energy and over 27,000 tons of CO2 year by year,” he said. 

Taken together, the projects he highlighted in his presentation accounted for savings of over $500,000 and more than 462 tons of direct CO2 emissions, with an additional 603 tons of CO2 saved through the indirect benefits of reduced part weight. 

“The carbon footprint reduction is a very fortunate side effect of making your blow molding operations more profitable,” Kharazov said. 

This article appears in the spring 2026 issue of The Journal of Blow Molding. 

© 2026, Society of Plastics Engineers Blow Molding Division