Polyethylene 9x More Efficient To Source From Sugar Cane Over Corn.

Tetra Pak is to pilot the use of renewable polyethylene as a raw material in the manufacture of its plastic caps and closures within the next two years. The carton manufacturer has signed an agreement with Brazilian company Braskem, a thermoplastic resin producer, to buy limited volumes of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) from a renewable feedstock.
According to TreeHugger.com:
“Brazilian plastic company Braskem SA reports that, using ethanol feedstock, their polyethylene process, scheduled to operate commercially in 2011, will make product with exactly the same characteristics as polyethylene derived from petroleum. Environmental- and cost-efficiency of the process hangs on feedstock choice. It will be “nine times as efficient to derive ethanol from sugarcane as from corn, and four-and-a-half times as efficient compared to ethanol derived from sugar beets.” Even more strikingly, a spokesman for Braskem reported, manufacture of one pound of petroleum-based polyethylene “releases 2.5 kg of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,…whereas the same amount of sugarcane-based PE captures that same amount of the gas.”
Read more at packagingnews.co.uk and TreeHugger.com.
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