A heat treatment device for a PET bottle preform with an integral handle includes an air-cooling knife, a heating furnace, and a transport mechanism. The air-cooling knife is disposed on an outlet side of the heating furnace, the bottle preform is transported into the heating furnace through the transport mechanism, heated in the heating furnace, and transported to the air-cooling knife, and the air-cooling knife jets airflow to and cools a lower end of a handle of the bottle preform, appropriately reducing the temperature at junction of the lower end of the handle and a bottle body so that a gentle transition between the temperature of the bottle body and the temperature of the handle is achieved, and the handle is not easily deformed after the bottle preform is blown, thereby effectively improving the quality of the bottle preform after blown.

A stretch blow moulding system for PET containers with PET integral handles; the containers blown from injection moulded preforms; each preform having the integral handle projecting from a junction point on a body portion of the preform; containers blown in a continuously rotating stretch blow moulding machine of the system. In a preferred form the preforms are progressed continuously at a substantially constant speed; the containers blown therefrom progress at the same substantially constant speed through to the filling and capping machine; and wherein the containers progress continuously through the filling and capping machine at the same substantially constant speed. Also described is a continuous stretch blow moulding system applied to specified integral handle PET preform and PET blown container structures stretch blown from the preforms thereby to obtain variable wall thickness of the preforms and/or variable wall thickness of the containers.