Biobased PE

What is bio-based PE and what are the advantages of the material?

This is polyethylene with a high proportion of renewable raw materials (at least 80 %). Sugar cane is currently the starting material. Depending on the application, bio-based PE can be a sensible alternative to fossil-based polyethylene.

Sugarcane-based bio-PE can have a negative greenhouse gas balance in a cradle-to-gate assessment that includes biogenic carbon (Tsiropoulos et al. (2015)). In addition, the raw material achieves by far the highest yield per area: at 76.7 t / ha, the yield per area for sugar cane is around 8.5 times higher than for maize (source: Stoffliche Nutzung nachwachsender Rohstoffe, Oliver Türk, Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2014).

Biobased PE has the same material structure as conventional PE and therefore also has better material properties compared to recycled plastics, e.g. with regard to tear resistance. Bio-based PE has the same polymer structure as conventional PE and is therefore very well suited for recycling – via the existing PE collection systems in Germany, such as the yellow bag (Gelber Sack).

In the waste hierarchy, recycling ranks above incineration – which is why this material belongs in the recyclables stream. If this – for whatever reasons – is not possible, thermal recycling (waste incineration plant) would also make sense, as long as fossil fuels are used to generate energy. This is due to the fact that the starting material (sugar cane plant) already binds CO₂ during the growth process. The biogenic carbon contained in the bio-based raw material was previously absorbed from the atmosphere during plant growth. During incineration, this carbon is released again as biogenic CO₂; no fossil carbon is released from the plant-based components. In addition, energy can be obtained from combustion.