Materials & Packaging Materials & Packaging

Amerplast Announces New, Flexible Packaging Made From Sugar Cane

This week, Amerplast, one of Europe's largest flexo printers and bag converters, began a supply partnership with Braskem, a global leader in biopolymers, to market Green Polyethylene (Green PE) made from a renewable sugar cane ethanol, to tissue segment.

By Caitlin Kauffman | Published 10 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Polyethylene is the most widely used type of plastic in the world, especially by the automotive industry and manufacturers of cosmetics, packaging, toy, personal hygiene and cleaning products, among others.

While environmentally sustainable, Green PE has the performance characteristics of a traditional PE. For Amerplast's customers such as retail bags, bakeries, fresh and frozen food, tissue and personal care producers, it offers an environmentally safe alternative for meeting their packaging needs.

“Amerplast is going through an exciting transformation, expanding to new markets and focusing further on innovation and related partnerships. Our goal is to be a leading European packaging company, in tune with customer and market trends", said Børge Kvamme, Amerplast CEO. "As today's consumers value sustainable packaging, our partnership with Braskem enables us to offer our customers a sustainable and innovative alternative to their packaging needs while contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gases", Kvamme concluded.

Green PE is produced using ethanol, a by-product in sugar production. It contains no fossil raw materials and can be recycled in existing recycling streams. Green PE also has the same quality and technical characteristics as conventional oil based polyethylene. Furthermore, sugar cane is a 100 % renewable and carbon dioxide depleting resource. Braskem's Green PE removes up to 2.15 metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere for each ton produced, from cradle to Braskem's gate.

"The partnership with Amerplast reinforces the European customers commitment to more sustainable packaging solutions. We are pleased to have Amerplast as a partner in this journey, said Marco Jansen, Braskem's Renewable Chemicals Commercial Director for Europe and North America.

In other packaging innovation news, in February a Dow Chemical Company pilot program showed how plastics can be converted into fuel, Nestlé UK and Unilever began researching how to improve the recyclability of flexible packaging products last December, and Tetra Pak launched the industry’s first carton made entirely from plant-based, renewable packaging materials last October.