Dow continues to advance sustainable chemistry through new and enhanced products, processes and services.

Polyethylene (PE) resins are commonly used to produce heavy duty shipping sacks for plastic resins and other products. In 1993, the shipping sacks Dow used were 7.8 mils thick. Today, the shipping sacks used for this same purpose are just 4.7 mils thick (a thickness reduction of nearly 40%). The thinner sacks also have better performance properties than the thicker sacks Dow used in 1993.

For Dow shipping sack applications alone, this prevents over 5 million pounds of PE per year from being used, resulting in energy savings equivalent to about 1.5 million gallons of gasoline, or heating and cooling for about 3,200 homes for one year.

Additionally, even though the improved PE resins used today are more expensive per pound than they were previously, the actual cost of each shipping sack is significantly less that it was before.

These reductions have been made possible because Dow scientists and engineers developed breakthrough improvements in how PE resins were made so that performance of the plastic resin was improved.

This is just one example of how the Human Element at Dow is contributing to more sustainable chemistry solutions; for more, please visit http://www.dow.com/commitments/studies/index.htm
 

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