Braskem completes its range of green PE

With the launch of a new line of green low density polyethylene (LDPE), announced this year, Braskem has completed its line-up of PE made from renewable sources, which already offers the high density (HDPE) and linear (LLDPE) variants. This resin will be made available to the market in 2014, with an annual production of approximately 30,000 tons. The Brazilian producer of resins Braskem announced the construction of the largest sugar cane alcohol-based ethylene plant in the world, located in the Triunfo Petrochemical Complex, in southern Brazil, at K 2007. During K 2010, the plant began production of the green polyethylene it had announced three years before.
The "I'm green" polyethylene has been chosen by brands adopting sustainable development as part of their strategic directives, as packaging for everything from cleaning products through food to cosmetics. In Asia, the Shiseido brand was the first Japanese cosmetics company to employ packaging made from renewable materials. In the US, Pantene's Nature Fusion line of shampoos and conditioners also use this green polymer. In Europe, the French brand L'Occitane uses the green polyethylene for its liquid soap bottles.
"Every ton of green polyethylene produced results in the capture and fixing of more than two tons of CO2 from the atmosphere and, at the end of the lifecycle, the material can be recycled in the same chain already established for conventional polyethylene", explains Braskem's director of renewables chemicals business Alexandre Elias.