Not all plastic has to be bad plastic

100% fossil free plastics

Plastic is part of virtually all the products which we rely on today. Some of these can be made from other materials, but plastic still has a crucial part in many areas, including essential items like medical equipment and food packaging. Eliminating plastics simply isn’t a viable option in those cases. Instead, we need to find new, sustainable ways to produce them.

“Plastic plays a very large role in our lives because it exists in most things. Therefore, we need to find new ways to produce it and sustainable ways to recycle it.” – Ellen Fors, R&D Engineer, Vattenfall.

Plastic is made up of 85% carbon. This carbon must come from somewhere and traditionally this means using fossil fuels such as oil. We believe a new kind of plastic production industry is possible, and the result can be 100% fossil free plastic.

A whole new take on plastics

If carbon dioxide emissions from a bio-based source are captured (for example in a biomass or waste-to-energy plant), methanol can be produced in an industrial process with the use of fossil free hydrogen (created by electrolysis of water with fossil free electricity) and then be converted into a hydrocarbon. This hydrocarbon can then be used to produce plastics. Not using plastic in the future is probably not a preferable option. That’s why we are helping transform industries through electrification and exploring innovative and sustainable ways of producing plastics.

“The new plastic from biogenic carbon dioxide can be recycled in the same way as traditional plastics. It can also be chemically recycled and broken down into basic molecules repeatedly to produce new fossil free plastics." – Ellen Fors, R&D Engineer, Vattenfall.