Sabic, a global leader in the chemical industry, demonstrated at K 2022, how advanced polymer chemistry is making a distinct difference across industries, especially as OEMs, brand owners and converters strive to reduce their climate impact.
Under the theme of ‘Making the change real’, the company’s solutions on display emphasised two key areas: accelerating the implementation of a circular plastics economy, and creating a clean-air economy by driving the transition to product electrification.
Sami Al-Osaimi, Acting EVP Petrochemicals at Sabic said, “Sustainability is part of our DNA and firmly rooted in all our activities. This connects closely to this year’s major show topics of Circular Economy and Climate Protection. Based on a broad portfolio of innovative material solutions and through dedicated value chain collaborations with leading partners from multiple industries, we have made significant progress over the past three years on our journey towards greater sustainability and circularity. In doing so, we have focused on helping our customers meet their strategic priorities while also striving to contribute to the resolution of pressing global challenges.”
Sabic’s presence at K 2022 was punctuated by two strategic initiatives:
- TRUCIRCLE, designed to accelerate the change towards circularity with design for recyclability, certified circular, renewable and mechanically recycled products, and closed-loop solutions – all targeted at reducing waste, carbon emissions and fossil depletion.
- BLUEHERO, an expanding ecosystem of materials, solutions and expertise to support the world’s energy transition to sustainable electric power, with its initial focus on vehicle electrification.
Sabic’s portfolio of advanced material and technologies to help the packaging value chain increase sustainability and reduce waste without compromising food safety or product performance is focused on five areas:
- Reduce waste: innovative solutions designed to minimize waste and enable 100% recyclability and light weighting
- Certified circular solutions: high-quality polymers with ISCC PLUS mass-balance accredited feedstock content from thermo-chemically processed, hard-to-recycle post-consumer mixed plastics
- Closed-loop collaborations & recycling of ocean plastic: value chain partnership projects to maximize the circularity of valuable used plastics within application segments and to reclaim the value of both ocean bound and ocean plastic
- Certified renewable solutions: use of materials with ISCC PLUS mass-balance accredited bio-based feedstock content that are not in direct competition with the human food chain and help reduce potential effects of climate change
- Consumer appeal & functionality: differentiated, durable applications with lighter, recyclable design and enhanced shelf appearance as well as greater functionality
An outstanding example of closed-loop collaboration success in the flexible packaging is with Mars for KIND healthy snack bar wrapper manufactured from flexible BOPP film with using certified circular Sabic PP for food contact. The sustainable mono-material packaging solution facilitates end-of-life recycling in existing collection and conversion operations without compromising high-speed processing or product quality.
Another close collaboration of Sabic with Covestro, a new fully recyclable stand-up pouch made with Sabic BOPE material and including Covestro’s heat-resistant coating resin technology. This transparent coating, currently in trial phase, the solution has been tested and validated, offering a broader sealing temperature window when processing on form fill and seal (FFS) lines for flexible packaging as it prevents both, film shrinkage and film sticking to heat seal bars during FFS. The new PE based high-performance, recyclable; mono-material stand-up pouch supports the drive to achieve a circular economy for flexible packaging, as it is a viable solution to replace PET or PA laminates in incumbent solutions.