Carbon sequestration (v.) – sekwəˈstrāSH(ə)n
The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere to slow and reverse global warming.
It is important to manufacture products in conjunction with life cycle thinking. By designing plastic products with bio-based polymers, we are “lowering carbon emissions by hundreds of millions of tons” yearly.
When sugarcane grows, carbon emissions are naturally extracted from the atmosphere because the sugarcane absorbs more carbon emissions than it emits. Carbon is not only sequestered, or captured, while the sugarcane plants are growing, but also stays within our bio-based plastics until it is finally released when our products are recycled and melted back into a material to be remodeled into new plasticware. This process leaves the Earth’s atmosphere cleaner in comparison to purchasing plastics produced from fossil fuels.
According to Franklin’s Associate Substitution Analysis Research, ideas of creating alternatives to plastic packaging were found to be detrimental to the Global Warming Potential (GWP) due to the need to manufacture new facilities to produce alternative packaging. Using I’m green™ Polyethylene addresses these concerns because the polyethylene that is used is completely compatible with existing facilities that produce conventional polyethylene products.
This is because “Green Polyethylene is a drop-in biopolymer,” which allows for sustainable sugarcane material to be dropped into existing manufacturing facilities instead of investing a lot of money, and carbon emissions, into new manufacturing facilities.
If all of the world’s plastics were bioplastics, we could reduce carbon emissions by 2%. This would help to achieve the goal to lower the Earth’s temperature.
