Developing Sustainable Products & Technologies
At the heart of the sustainability agenda at INEOS O&P is a goal to drive sustainability across all aspects of our operations from "cradle-to-cradle". We approach this from a holistic standpoint trying to find unique ways to reduce the need for hydrocarbon-based raw materials, reduce our reliance on power and natural gas, reduce our emissions, develop products that allow our customers to light-weight thereby reducing fuel and shipping costs, and to improve the ability to recycle the products we make.
We continue to work with our customers to develop new products that enable light-weighting without compromising product quality and properties. We have invested in new technology to upgrade some of our high-density polyethylene (HDPE) manufacturing assets to produce bimodal molecular weight HDPE. This technology provides significant mechanical property improvements in areas such as stiffness and stress crack resistance that enable light-weighting of bottles, caps, films and containers while delivering equivalent or improved performance characteristics. Many of our new developments in polypropylene are focused on high melt rate (low viscosity) products. The benefit is that the higher flow rate allows resin molders to produce thinner parts such as drink cups or food packaging. Such technologies provide for an immediate impact of reducing the amount of polymer required thus driving improved conservation.
