Made of polyethylene produced by Braskem, the equipment is distributed by the Municipal Company of Urban Cleaning (COMLURB)

April, 23, 2012 -This week, the local Government of Rio de Janeiro City will start distributing containers made of polyethylene obtained from a renewable source - sugar cane ethanol - to help improve the city's urban sanitation. Branded as green plastic, the resin is manufactured by Braskem , the largest world producer of biopolymers and is well known by its feature of bringing together the benefits and properties of regular polyethylene, including its recyclability, and its capacity of capturing CO2 over its production cycle.

50,000 containers will be distributed all over the city in the next 90 days. The first 5,000 are intended to be distributed to buildings, stores, houses and condominiums in areas with larger concentration of tourists and markets in the region of Copacabana and in Realengo.

The containers are made by the French company Plastic Ominum, the leader on this kind of solution in Europe. They contribute to improve the hygiene and sanitary conditions of the city. Their structure prevents the rainwater to enter and the consequent formation of leachate - liquid residue generated by the decomposition of organic matter present in trash -, and may be stored in the internal areas of buildings until their collection. Their lid also prevents the attraction of animals.

Braskem makes the green plastic since September 2010, when it opened in Triunfo (RS) the world's largest facility of ethylene derived from ethanol, capable of producing 200,000 tons of green polyethylene per year. Differently from the fossil sourced plastic, green plastics presents a positive environmental balance: up to 2.5 tons of carbon gas (CO2) are taken from the atmosphere for each ton produced.

Source: Braskem