Developing “Green” Plastics: Brazil in the Lead
Brazil is a world leader when it comes to renewable energy: some 45% of the South American nation’s total energy supply is produced using renewable resources, and it has yet to get serious about developing its wind power resources. That compares to 7% for the US. Brazil is also a leader in what promises to be a huge industry and global market that would have an equally profound, widespread and positive impact when it comes to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and reducing carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention air, water and land pollution from human waste products more broadly speaking—bioplastics. Just as organic chemists and the companies they worked for started tinkering with oil and natural gas to develop the myriad plastic products we use today in the wake of huge increases in supply of those fossil fuels, Brazilian companies have been busy developing recyclable bioplastics using sugar cane ethanol. (…) There are plenty of issues and problems yet to be completely resolved, but Brazilian companies have been at the forefront of this wave of “green” change in major industries and businesses. “‘It really is about carbon emissions,’ and plastics produced from renewable sources have a net positive carbon footprint,” Dow Chemical senior value chain manager Jeffrey Wooster was quoted as saying. Image source: globalwarmingisreal.com. > Continue.
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