​Plastic packaging made from carbon emissions

 Paris, October 27, 2020 – Through their innovative partnership, LanzaTech, Total and L’Oréal have premiered the world’s first sustainable packaging made from captured and recycled carbon emissions. The successful conversion process takes place in three steps: 

• LanzaTech captures industrial carbon emissions and converts them into ethanol using a unique biological process. 
• Total, thanks to an innovative dehydration process jointly developed with IFP Axens, converts the ethanol into ethylene before polymerizing it into polyethylene that has the same technical characteristics as its fossil counterpart. 
• L’Oréal uses this polyethylene to produce packaging with the same quality and properties as conventional polyethylene.

It is a technological and industrial success proving that industrial carbon emissions can be used to produce plastic packaging. This world first demonstrates the commitment of the three partners to the development of a sustainable circular economy for plastics and paves the way for new opportunities for the capture and re-use of industrial carbon emissions. 

The partners now intend to continue working together on scaling the production of these sustainable plastics and look forward to working with all those who want to join them in committing to the use of these new sustainable plastics.

Learn more by accessing the press release on total.com.