Determining the

optimum shape for a

plastic bottle
Pure Mathematics Unit 1: Internal Assessment

Candidate Name:

Centre #:

Candidate #:
Introduction
The environment is something I’m becoming increasingly concerned about, it seems every
day there is a new article in the news about plastics killing marine-life and accumulating in
species higher up the food chain due to bioaccumulation. Bioaccumulation is when
something that begins in a small concentration, gradually gets more concentrated up the
food pyramid, this happens for example, when a small fish
eats a small piece of plastic and then a sea
bird for example may eat many, many fish
which have all eaten pieces of plastic. That
sea bird will now have significant amounts of
plastic in its digestive system, purely from
eating smaller fish. This constant onslaught
of upsetting news prompted me to think
about how we could take a first step towards
reducing our plastic use. Figure 1 A Plastic Ocean

I am not naïve enough to believe that the production and use of single use plastic is just going
to stop overnight, especially considering how lucrative the production of plastics can be and
taking into account that we as a planet tend to value short-term monetary gain over our
environment. Bearing that in mind, my idea for this investigation was derived from the
thought process of reducing plastic use in such a way that general industry might be
agreeable. I decided to try and determine the optimum shape of a plastic bottle that
minimizes the amount of plastic used for a 500cm3 bottle and in doing so, hopefully find a
compromise to take a small (reasonable) step towards reducing plastic use. I decided on
500cm3 as the volume, as the majority of drinks bottles are 500cm3 (cm3 is equivalent to ml).
To do this I had to create a certain set of parameters, so I fixed the volume of the bottles at
500cm3 so that I could compare the surface areas. I also had to accept that there would be
certain unrealistic assumptions that I would have to make for this to be possible. Firstly, I
don’t take into account the fact that a 500cm3 bottle will in reality be larger than 500cm3 to
account for the fact a bottle will not be filled to the absolute maximum point. Additionally, I
am not taking into account the thickness of the plastic, the surface areas calculated assume
that the plastic itself has no volume. However, for the purpose of comparison, as long as I
remain consistent with this process, the comparison should be fair. In reality, the bottles
would also need a lid, however, if I make the assumption that the bottle lids would all add
the same amount of volume and surface area on each bottle, then again, as before, it
remains a systematic error which should not affect comparability.
Cylinder:
As the majority of plastic bottles are in a majorly cylindrical shape, I decided it would be best
to primarily investigate the optimal dimensions and surface area of a cylinder. In order to do
this, I used optimisation. I began by finding one value in terms
of another and as I am keeping the volume at a constant
500cm3, I used the volume equation to do this.
𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 = 𝜋𝑟 2 ℎ

500
500𝑐𝑚3 = 𝜋𝑟 2 ℎ ∴ ℎ =
πr2

I then used this value for ℎ in terms of 𝑟 and substituted it

into the equation for surface area.

500
( )
𝑆. 𝐴. = 2𝜋𝑟ℎ + 2𝜋𝑟 2 ∴ 𝑆. 𝐴. = 2𝜋𝑟 π r 2 + 2𝜋𝑟 2

Figure 2 Cylinder Diagram Then, to find the minimal surface area of a 500cm3 cylinder
I differentiated the equation for surface area.

500
( ) 10 00
𝑓(𝑟) = 2𝜋𝑟 π r 2 + 2𝜋𝑟 2 ∴ 𝑓(𝑟) = r + 2𝜋𝑟 2

du dv
u v −u
𝑸𝒖𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑹𝒖𝒍𝒆: 𝑓(𝑟)1 = v → 𝑓 ′ (𝑟)1 = d r dr
2
v

du
𝑢 = 1000 → =0
dr

dv
𝑣 = 𝑟 → d r =¿1

r × 0 −1000 ×1
𝑓 ′ (𝑟)1 = 2
r

𝑓 ′ (𝑟)2 = 2 × 2𝜋𝑟 2−1 = 4𝜋𝑟

−1000
∴ 𝑓 ′ (𝑟) =
r
2 + 4𝜋𝑟

Having differentiated the equation for surface area, I then set the equation to zero in order
to find any stationary points (in this case I was specifically looking for the minimum point).

√
−1000 −1000 3 1000
0= 2 + 4𝜋𝑟 → 2 = 4𝜋𝑟 → 4𝜋𝑟 3 = 1000 → 𝒓 = ≈ 𝟒. 𝟑𝟎
r r 4π

To verify that this was in fact a minimum point, I took the second derivative and substituted
in my value for 𝑟 (equivalent to 𝑥):
 𝑓′(𝑟) = −1000𝑟 −2 + 4𝜋𝑟 → 𝑓"(𝑟) = −1000(−2𝑟 −3) + 4𝜋

𝑓"(√ 1000
3

4π ) [
= −1000 −2 (
√ 4 π ) −3] + 4𝜋 = 37.699 …
1000
3

The value of 37.699…. achieved here is positive, which shows that this is indeed a minimum
point, as the curvature of the function at this coordinate is positive indicating the function is
concave upwards. Following that, I substituted the value for 𝑟 back into the original surface
area equation to find the minimum surface area of a 500cm3 cylinder.