Actimel boost for UK green plastics

05-Dec-2011 - Last updated on 07-Dec-2011 at 16:01 GMT

Danone Dairies' decision to switch from petroleum-based polyethylene to the same plastic produced from plant-derived bioethanol for its Actimel drinking yogurt bottles signals a major advance for 'green plastics' in UK food and drink.

The white bottles are produced using 95% bio-high density polyethylene (bio-HDPE) sourced from Brazilian chemicals company Braskem. The bio-HDPE is produced from 'green' ethanol, which is derived from sugar cane waste.

Up to now, many of the highest-profile applications of bio-HDPE have been in household chemicals and personal care, with Coca-Cola leading the way in beverages with its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) PlantBottle.

The change will make a significant contribution to Danone's 2008 undertaking to make a 30% reduction in its products' carbon footprint by 2012 (with a 20% cut already achieved).

As Danone UK's dairy strategy governance director Bryan Martins explained, one third of the 30% cut is expected to come from packaging, thanks in part to a 50% lightweighting of the Actimel bottle. "We've also been looking at making wider changes in packaging from fossil fuels to renewable resources," he added.

By Danone's calculation, which takes into account production, packaging and transportation (but not farm-to-factory), the pack accounts for 13.6% of a product's total carbon footprint.

The firm said it was planning to provide an on-pack alert regarding the new bottles for six weeks from the October launch. According to Martins, consumer awareness of carbon impact has been growing. "Our research tells us that around 40% of consumers rate carbon reduction as a key environmental initiative," he said.

Danone is already using bio-HDPE for products elsewhere in Europe, and earlier this year began using biodegradable polylactide (PLA) for Activia pots in Germany. Said Martins: "In this case, they converted from using polystyrene (PS), for which PLA is the obvious 'greener' substitute. We'll be looking at the German innovation to see if this could be done in the UK, too."

Unlike PLA, bio-HDPE is not biodegradable and can in fact be recycled in the same stream as HDPE milk bottles in the UK.

Because of the way the polymer is produced, PET can only have a 30% 'bio' component, as is the case with Coca-Cola's PlantBottle. But Rodrigo Belloli, marketing manager for Braskem's Green PE business, explained that with bio-HDPE, this proportion can be up to 100%. This is true, for example, of Coke's bottles for its Odwalla products in the US.

Braskem is expecting further European applications of bio-HDPE to emerge over the next few weeks.

In 2013 the firm plans to open a 30,000- to 50,000t-capacity bio-polypropylene production plant.