Plastic Pint Glasses: How to Choose

If you want to go straight to the catalogue, here is the link: Plastic Pint Glasses.

The quality and value of plastic pint glasses can vary significantly and making the right choice can have a significant impact on a bar's bottom line:

• Clearer glasses sell more beer.
• Stronger glasses reduce spillage.
• Better made glasses enable bar staff to work faster.

Here is some information on the different materials available and their relative advantages.

Thermoformed Polypropylene: Makes flexible plastic pint glasses that will not crack or shatter and leave little bits of plastic on the ground. Slightly opaque in appearance when empty but the better ones will be transparent when full of beer. Usually the most inexpensive and therefore the most common type of plastic pint glass available. Because of the temptation to make them ever thinner and cheaper polypropylene pint glasses can often be so flexible they have to be doubled up to stop beer being spilt everywhere. Regalzone's polypropylene pint glasses aim to offer the best value for money by being just good enough.

Thermoformed Polystyrene: A more rigid plastic glass, these pint glasses have a better look and feel than polypropylene which customers at premium venues appreciate. In addition, they can be filled faster than polypropylene with less fobbing. Because the beer foams less, the bar staff can work faster and more beer can be served.

Bioplastic (PLA): Often marketed as "biodegradable plastic pint glasses", it is important to note that PLA is not biodegradable in the same way as a banana skin. It needs to be composted in a commercial composter where the temperatures and humidity levels are high enough to enable them to degrade. Biodegradable plastic pint glasses will not degrade as litter, or on a domestic compost heap, or if ploughed into the ground. However, they are decent quality and have an environmental niche providing people can see through the hype and understand their limitations.

PET: The same type of plastic as used to make fizzy drinks bottles, plastic pint glasses made from PET are the most easily recyclable and therefore perhaps the most environmentally friendly choice available. Typically used to serve smoothies and other premium cold drinks, plastic pint glasses made from PET are the highest quality disposable plastic pint glasses available.

Injection Moulded Polystyrene: Often referred to as 'crystal styrene' to put some distance between them and the expanded polystyrene cups, plastic pint glasses made in this way can be disposable (like the type of glass you might find on an airliner) or reusable (with a similar wall thickness to glass). Good for about 100 cycles in a commercial glass washer before they need to be replaced.

Polycarbonate: As aeroplanes became faster and faster, pilots were at increasing risk from birds hitting their canopies and causing disaster. Polycarbonate was the only plastic strong enough to protect them but thin enough to give them perfect vision. And now polycarbonate is used to make plastic pint glasses. Designed to be a genuine alternative to glass, these polycarbonate pint glasses are simply the best available.

CE Marked or Unmarked: You need your plastic pint glasses to be CE-marked if you are planning to sell beer from free-flow (unmeasured) pumps. However, CE-marked glasses usually cost no more than unmarked plastic glasses.

Printing and Branding: If your customer wants your glasses branded we can arrange this for you. Call us for a quote: +441753 662666.