Plant-based plastic is a significant environmental innovation, Procter & Gamble states in its just-published 2011 Sustainability Report – pointing a possible way forward for nonwovens manufacturers supplying the consumer giant responsible for market leading products such as Pampers, Always and Swiffer.
Hair care brand Pantene, for example, is now piloting the use of sugarcane-based plastic in its packaging. The material made its debut in the Pantene Pro-V Nature Fusion collection last April in Western Europe, and is expanding to North America this autumn.
Sourced from Braskem in Brazil, the sugarcane is converted into ethanol and eventually into plastic, utilising a by-product from the rest of the plant to provide some of the energy needed to fuel the process.