AFFINITY polyolefin elastomer improves the performance, sustainability of plastic pallets
Dow (NYSE: Dow) announced that Yelopack, a technology-based supply chain comprehensive management company, has adopted AFFINITY™ polyolefin elastomer (POE) in its existing plastic pallets, which will increase the life span of its pallets by five years – more than doubling their current life span. Improving the reusability of plastic pallets is in line with Dow’s new sustainability target of enabling 1 million metric tons of plastic to be collected, reused or recycled through its direct actions and partnerships.
Prior to this collaboration, one plastics pallet could be reused about 20 times before its end-of-life but by adding Dow’s AFFINITY™ POE, the pallet can be reused approximately 50 times at peak condition, even during harsh weather conditions such as winter where temperatures can fall below minus 30-degree Celsius.
In this tripartite collaboration between Dow, brand owner - Yelopack, and pallet producer - Shangnan Pallet Sharing, Dow’s materials science and technology expertise was leveraged to enhance the durability of Yelopack’s current polypropylene (PP) pallets, more than doubling the number of times their new pallets can be reused. This advances the sustainability goals of Yelopack and their customers, while posing cost savings since the pallets will be replaced at a reduced frequency.
“Improving the recyclability and reusability of existing products is an important part of ensuring the sustainability of plastics, which we proudly support through research and development, and collaboration,” said Bambang Candra, Asia Pacific commercial vice president of Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics. “Partnering with Yelopack to extend the lifecycle of pallets supports our goal of promoting a circular economy for plastics.”
Pallets play a critical role in logistics for productivity and products’ safety reasons; there are millions of pallets in circulation around the world every day. While wooden pallets are more commonly used, plastic pallets are more durable, lighter and safer. Yelopack has developed the new generation of plastic pallet embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RIFD) and Narrow Band Internet of Things (NB-IoT) chips, enabling the pallets being easily identified and traced and hence re-collected and reused.
“At Yelopack, our purpose is to advance the circularity of plastic pallets. We are continuously finding ways to ensure that our pallets are the most sustainable in the world, which is why this collaboration with Dow is significant, because our pallets can now remain in the supply chain longer,” said Mr. Xiang Shi, Founder and CEO of Yelopack. “The durability of our pallets greatly reduces carbon footprint, and as a result, 98% less material consumption compared to traditional pallet. Daily, over 400,000 pallets are being circulated across industries from fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) to petrochemicals, and the number is still growing. We are confident that circularity can be achieved.”
“As a pallet manufacturer, designing a highly durable plastics pallet that can be reused for five years is not easy,” said Ms. Yemin Sun, CEO of Shangnan Pallet Sharing, “With Dow’s advanced material science technology, we are able to improve the performance of our pallets to meet stringent operation requirements, especially in difficult environments, throughout its extended service life. The shared pallets are currently used in many world leading companies including Dow. With the increased number of pallet circulation, we hope to help our customers and the industry reduce their carbon footprint in the long run.”
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