The world’s most widely used plastic can be made without a single drop of crude oil.
Green PE- Sugarcane-Based Polyethylene
Inside Green PE — the drop-in, sugarcane-based polyethylene now available for the Indian market
Here’s a fact that surprises most people in the plastics industry: it is entirely possible to make polyethylene — the most widely used plastic on the planet — without a single drop of crude oil.
It’s called Green PE, and it’s not a lab curiosity. It’s been running at commercial scale in Brazil since 2010.
We recently went deep into the technical case for it, and want to share what stood out — especially for those watching India’s packaging and plastics industry navigate Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) norms, sustainability commitments, and rising demand for lower-carbon materials.
How It Actually Works
Sugarcane absorbs CO₂ as it grows. The cane is crushed and fermented into ethanol. That ethanol is dehydrated into ethylene — the exact same molecule the plastics industry has always polymerized into PE, just sourced from a field instead of a refinery.
From there, it’s the same polymerization process, the same equipment, the same polymer. Chemically, Green PE and fossil PE are identical. That’s the part worth sitting with: this isn’t a new material with new handling rules. It’s a drop-in replacement — no new tooling, no reprocessing lines, no compromise on performance.
The Numbers That Changed How We Think About It
One hectare of cultivated sugarcane yields approximately 82.5 tonnes of cane, which is processed into approximately 7,200 litres of ethanol. After dehydration and polymerization, this converts into approximately 3 tonnes of green ethylene and, correspondingly, approximately 3 tonnes of I’m Green™ polyethylene — reflecting near-quantitative mass conversion of monomer to polymer during polymerization (Table 1).
| Sugarcane cultivated | Ethanol produced | Green ethylene yielded | I’m Green™ PE produced |
|---|---|---|---|
| 82.5 t (from 1 ha) | 7,200 L | 3 | 3 t |
Table 1. Indicative land-to-resin mass balance for the sugarcane-to-Green-PE route, per hectare cultivated.
• Scale: 1hector land for 3MT of PE. At this scale, the “food vs. fuel” objection does not hold up.
• Circularity: vinasse and ash from processing are returned to the fields as fertilizer, cutting external fertilizer use by roughly 60%. Bagasse is combusted for the plant’s own process energy — a genuinely closed-loop system.
• Verification: renewable content isn’t a marketing claim, it’s measured. The radiocarbon (C-14) method under ASTM D6866 determines, independently and precisely, what fraction of the carbon in a resin came from a plant rather than from petroleum.
Why This Matters for India Right Now
Grades are already available to Indian converters — across injection moulding, blow moulding, and EVA — covering everything from cosmetic packaging and buckets to industrial containers, beverage bottles, and footwear midsoles. Renewable content ranges from around 60% in transition-grade resins to 96% in the highest bio-content blow-moulding grade.
For brand owners targeting Scope 3 emission reduction and converters facing EPR pressure, that combination — genuine renewable content, verifiable data, zero process disruption — is rare. Most sustainable-material transitions ask you to change something: your tooling, your recycling stream, your cost structure, or your product performance. This one mostly asks you to change your resin order.
“Most sustainable-material transitions ask you to change something. This one mostly asks you to change your resin order.”
That said, it isn’t a free lunch. The supply chain currently runs through Brazil, so Indian converters are sourcing imported material with the logistics tail that implies. There is a cost premium over fossil PE. And “Green PE” is not a single number — a transition grade at ~60% renewable content is a genuinely different sustainability claim than a 96% grade, so it is worth reading the technical data sheet, not just the product name.
Bringing Green PE to India with SKYi FKuR
For Indian brands, packaging converters, and manufacturers looking to explore renewable polyethylene, access to the right material and technical support is critical.
SKYi FKuR Biopolymers Pvt. Ltd. is the authorised partner for Braskem’s I’m Green™ Bio-based PE in India, bringing Braskem’s renewable polyethylene portfolio closer to Indian customers.
As part of the SKYi–FKuR partnership, we support customers exploring the transition from conventional fossil-based PE to bio-based PE across applications such as films, packaging, bottles, closures, tubes, retail bags, and other flexible and rigid applications.
Commercial Grade Portfolio for the Indian Market
We supply a portfolio of I’m Green™-based resins to the Indian market spanning injection moulding, blow moulding, and EVA applications. Two designations describe renewable content: “ST” (transition) grades, which blend renewable and fossil-derived monomer to achieve an intermediate biobased carbon content of approximately 60%, and higher-renewable-content grades verified at 96% (blow moulding) or a minimum of 80% (EVA) — the latter measured as minimum C-14 content under the ASTM D6866 radiocarbon method. Table 2 summarizes the processing and renewable-content specifications of the four principal grades offered.
| Grade | Process / Type | MFR (g/10 min) |
Density (g/cm³) |
Renewable / Biobased Carbon Content |
Principal Applications |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STHA 7260 (SHA 7260) |
Injection moulding (HDPE, transition grade) |
20 | 0.955 | ~60% (ST-grade) | Buckets and bowls, lids, toys, thin-walled parts, houseware, cosmetic packaging |
| STHC 7260 (SHC 7260) |
Injection moulding (HDPE, transition grade) |
7.2 | 0.959 | ~60% (ST-grade) | Industrial containers, safety helmets, toilet seats, houseware, toys, lids, pallets, crates for beverage bottles / fish / vegetables, cosmetic packaging |
| SGF 4950 | Blow moulding (HDPE) |
0.36 | 0.956 | 96% | Bottles for hygiene and cleaning products, beverage bottles, compression-moulded caps, cosmetic packaging |
| SVT 2180 (Green EVA) |
Injection moulding / compression (EVA, 19% VA content) |
2.1 | — | ≥80% (min. C-14 content) |
Base resin for foamed and reticulated plates and soles (unisole midsole) for footwear, toys, sporting goods |
Table 2. Green PE and Green EVA grades offered for the Indian market (SKYi FKuR / Braskem I’m Green™ platform).
VA = vinyl acetate; C-14 = radiocarbon content per ASTM D6866.
The injection-moulding grades (STHA/SHA 7260 and STHC/SHC 7260) differ principally in melt flow rate — 20 g/10 min versus 7.2 g/10 min, respectively — enabling process optimization across thin-walled, fast-cycle parts (STHA 7260) and thicker-walled, structurally demanding parts such as pallets and industrial containers (STHC 7260). The blow-moulding grade SGF 4950, with a low melt flow rate of 0.36 g/10 min characteristic of HDPE bottle-grade resins, achieves the highest renewable content of the portfolio (96%) and targets rigid packaging for hygiene, cleaning, beverage, and cosmetic products. The EVA grade SVT 2180, containing 19% vinyl acetate and a minimum 80% radiocarbon content, is positioned for foamed and reticulated applications — principally footwear midsoles, toys, and sporting goods — where EVA’s cushioning and flexibility properties are required.
The Bigger Picture
Plastic isn’t going away — global demand keeps climbing. The more useful question isn’t “how do we replace plastic,” it’s “how do we decouple plastic from fossil carbon without asking the entire value chain to reinvent itself.” Green PE is one of the clearest working answers to that question, precisely because it changes the feedstock and leaves everything else alone.
Conclusion
Sugarcane-derived Green Polyethylene represents a commercially proven, technically mature route to reduce the fossil-carbon footprint of polyolefin products while preserving the processing behaviour, mechanical performance, and end-of-life recyclability of conventional fossil PE. Land-use and mass-balance data indicate that current and near-term production scales occupy a negligible fraction of arable land, and integrated by-product recovery within the sugarcane biorefinery further reduces net agricultural inputs relative to non-integrated production. Independently verifiable renewable-carbon content, quantified via ASTM D6866 radiocarbon analysis, distinguishes this platform from renewable-content claims based on mass-balance accounting alone. For the Indian market, the commercially available grade portfolio — spanning injection moulding, blow moulding, and EVA applications — offers converters and brand owners a drop-in decarbonization option for packaging, household, industrial, and footwear applications, subject to the supply-chain and cost considerations discussed above.
Interested in exploring Green PE for your application?
Connect with SKYi FKuR Biopolymers to discuss your application, grade requirements, and sustainability objectives.
The transition to lower-carbon packaging doesn’t necessarily require reinventing the wheel.
References
[1] Braskem S.A. I’m Green™ Polyethylene: A Renewable-Sourced Alternative to Traditional Plastic — Technical Overview, Investment, Capacity, and Product Portfolio. Triunfo Petrochemical Complex, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
[2] European Bioplastics. Bio-based plastics: reference data on renewable feedstock classification and terminology (as cited in Braskem I’m Green™ technical materials).
[3] Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Planejamento Energético (NIPE) / Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) / União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar (UNICA). Sugarcane-to-ethanol conversion and Brazilian ethanol production statistics.
[4] ASTM International. ASTM D6866: Standard Test Methods for Determining the Biobased Content of Solid, Liquid, and Gaseous Samples Using Radiocarbon Analysis. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA.
[5] FKuR Kunststoff GmbH / Braskem S.A. “Plastics Care for Future — Green PE Argumentations for Indian Market,” technical product presentation, 1 March 2023 (technical data sheets: STHA 7260, STHC 7260, SGF 4950, SVT 2180).