During this first week of June, Braskem is participating in the Vancouver edition of Sustainable Brands, one of the most important events in the sustainability calendar, as a sponsor and key presenter and exhibitor at the Good Materials & Packaging Pavilion. The company will take the opportunity of the trade fair to showcase its latest concept in recycled plastic resins.

Committed to continually developing sustainable solutions via its Wecycle platform, Braskem has delivered promising results in its efforts to create a recycled resin with higher quality and a high percentage of recycled materials derived from household post-consumer thermoformed packaging made from polyethylene. Its main characteristics include resistance to stress cracking similar to that of virgin resins and tensile stress S mechanical properties that are 70% higher than the recycled resins currently used in the market. The next step is to identify partners to test the solution in finished goods (small volume thermoformed packaging), which will use the recycled resin as a raw material. 

In the debate forum, which will focus on "How brands are developing new packaging solutions and incorporating circular economy practices into their products," Braskem executives will discuss the projects and technologies currently being studied in the company's innovation laboratories. Joe Jankowski, Braskem's Green Polyethylene commercial manager for North America, will address the benefits and applications of I'm greenTM plastic. Luiz Gustavo Ortega, Braskem's Sustainable Development manager, will comment on the Bluevision content platform, which addresses topics related to sustainability, human development and using resources intelligently. Fabiana Quiroga, director of the Recycling & Wecycle Platform team, will talk about the initiative to support new businesses that promote post-consumer plastic waste and develop the recycling chain. 

In addition, Fabio Lamon, Head of Digital Manufacturing at Braskem, will give a lecture on the event's main stage on how the dynamics of the company's global operations enable it to take advantage of the best that each region has to offer and the importance of talking about sustainability not only for companies, but also for the public. 

In the exhibitors' area, Braskem will have two booths. One will showcase its I'm greenTM Green Plastic made from sugarcane and its key applications, which include  food packaging, home care and personal care products. The other booth will be dedicated to the Bluevision and Wecycle platforms. The latter will showcase some of the products arising from Braskem's partnerships supported by the platform, which include the organizer box from Martiplast, the packaging for Qualitá stain remover of Grupo Pão de Açúcar and the trash bags from Embalixo.

 "Sustainable development is one of the core pillars of Braskem's activities and we believe it is very important to foster discussion on the topic with other companies in the industry in order to strengthen our initiatives and to see what the other large players are doing," said Fabiana Quiroga. "We brought to the event our main products, concepts and programs focusing on sustainability, seeking to influence the entire chain to think the same way."

Complementary information:
I'm greenTM polyethylene is made from ethylene derived from sugarcane ethanol. Its major differential is helping to reduce greenhouse gases emissions by capturing carbon dioxide during the production process. It also has the same properties of traditional polyethylene, which means it does not require adaptations to machinery while being 100% recyclable. Braskem's Green Plastic plant has production capacity of 200 kton/year.

Bluevision
To contribute to the development of sustainable solutions and to promote debate on the topic, Braskem launched, in March 2018, during the World Water Forum in Brasília, the global content platform called Bluevision (www.bluevisionbraskem.com). Its goal is to produce relevant content that encourages people to reflect and to foster a new way of interacting with the environment in which they live.

Wecycle: high-value recycled plastic
Through the Wecycle platform, created in 2015, Braskem supports businesses that add value to plastic waste throughout the entire production chain and supports initiatives to promote recycling, the use of post-consumer plastic waste and the environment. The initiative already has resulted in a partnership with various organizations to develop products, solutions and processes involving the reuse of plastics. The following products were created by this platform. Learn more at www.braskem.com.br/wecycle

Qualitá Stain Remover
The initiative uses the waste collected at stations installed at the hypermarkets and supermarkets of the Grupo Pão de Açúcar (Extra and Pão de Açúcar), which are donated to the program's partner cooperatives. Once separated, the plastic is sent to a recycling plant that manufactures a resin containing 70% recycled plastic and 30% virgin polyethylene. The resin is then sold to plastic converters, which manufacture the packaging for the stain remover and bottles the product. All Qualitá stain removers sold in Brazil - around 10,000 containers per month - feature packaging made from recycled resins. 

Embalixo trash bags 
Braskem and Embalixo, Brazil's leading trash bag producer, in partnership with Grupo Pão de Açúcar, are manufacturing new trash bags made from plastics materials disposed of by customers at the Pão de Açúcar Unilever Recycling Stations and from industrial sacks previously used by Braskem to deliver its resins. Once crushed and transformed into recycled resins, the waste materials are then used to produce a premium line of Embalixo bags, called Embalixo com Alças, which bears the seal "Recycled Plastic. Conscientious Cycle."

Organizer boxes
A partnership between Braskem, Martiplast, a housewares manufacturer, and Leroy Merlin, a home improvement retailer, has made available to consumers organizer boxes made from 100% recycled plastic. Through the Wecycle platform, the companies developed an application that uses 60 tons of polypropylene per year obtained from recycled big bags.  The products, which can be found at Leroy Merlin stores, are identified by the seal "Recycled Plastic. Conscientious Cycle."

About Sustainable Brands
Sustainable Brands is the leading global community for innovative brands that are shaping the future of global trade. Since 2006, its mission has been to inspire, engage and support business leaders and brands to envision a better future. The community works in a variety of formats: publication of digital articles, rounds of talks, internationally recognized conferences and regional events, and a robust online library, all of which seek to engage communities, within and outside of the group, throughout the entire year.

About Braskem
With a human-oriented global vision of the future, the 8,000 Team Members of Braskem strive every day to improve people's lives by creating sustainable solutions in chemistry and plastics. Braskem is the largest resin producer in the Americas, with annual production of 20 million tons, including chemical products and basic petrochemicals, and sales of R$50 billion in 2017. Braskem exports to clients in approximately 100 countries and operates 41 industrial units, which are located in Brazil, United States, Germany and Mexico, the latter in partnership with the Mexican company Idesa.