Shanghai, China – June 19, 2023 – Dow (NYSE: DOW), a global materials science company, today announced its collaboration with Procter & Gamble China (P&G China) for an air capsule e-commerce packaging. The air capsule, enabled by P&G China’s innovation and Dow’s materials, aims to deliver an effective and efficient way to protect products while avoiding excessive packaging in e-commerce and facilitating recyclability.
The air capsule packaging is a significant milestone in advancing sustainability for the e-commerce industry, offering benefits such as:
- Reduction of >40% in material weight compared to traditional corrugated parcel boxes, thus requiring only 25% of original trucking and 75% less warehouse space
- Safe and reliable cushion protection
- Enabling recyclability through an all-PE mono material structure
The packaging design is also reliable and convenient for consumers, with features such as a tamper-free opening for content integrity, an easy-to-tear strip, and an auto-deflate feature for hassle-free disposal after opening.
Air capsule e-commerce packaging enabled by P&G China’s innovation and Dow’s high performance PE resins
“The rise of e-commerce has inevitably generated an increase in packaging waste. At Dow, our role is to develop materials that enable better performing, sustainable packaging that is designed for recyclability from the start. Through our collaboration with P&G China, we not only meet the needs of consumer brands and e-retailers, but also enable consumers to do their part with materials that close the loop on packaging waste,” said Bambang Candra, Asia Pacific commercial vice president, Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics.
E-commerce packaging typically consists of carton boxes as the outer packaging, with air cushion bags or bubble wrap inside to protect and stabilize the products during delivery. However, the traditional air cushion bag film structure is multi-material – such as nylon (to provide high gas barrier for extended shelf life), a tie-layer resin, and polyethylene – making it difficult to recycle through conventional methods.
Dow’s ELITE™ AT high performance PE resins provide comparable gas barrier performance, allowing nylon to be removed from the formulation to create an all-PE mono material structure that enables recyclability of the packaging.
“At P&G, we are focused on optimizing our packaging design and committed to driving greater circularity in plastic packaging. Partnering with Dow has enabled us to make progress in our commitment toward achieving 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging by 2030. The development of our air capsule e-commerce packaging is a step in the right direction, and we hope to continue collaborating with more partners to drive such impact at scale,” said Neo Yang, Go to Market Packaging Innovation Director, P&G Greater China.
Through expertise in materials science, Dow works closely with partners like P&G China to deliver a sustainable future for plastics. These efforts are aligned with Dow’s sustainability goals to Close the Loop by enabling 100 percent of its packaging solutions to be recyclable or reusable by 2035 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
About Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics
Packaging and Specialty Plastics (P&SP), a business unit of Dow (NYSE: DOW), combines core strengths of R&D, worldwide reach, broad product lines and industry expertise to deliver high performing technologies for end use markets in food packaging, personal hygiene, infrastructure, consumer goods and transportation. P&SP is one of the world’s largest producers of polyethylene resins, functional polymers, and adhesives, and enabled by Pack Studios, is a leading innovator and collaborator across the value chain on sustainable application development and circular economy life-cycle design for plastics. www.dowpackaging.com
About Dow
Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines global breadth; asset integration and scale; focused innovation and materials science expertise; leading business positions; and environmental, social and governance leadership to achieve profitable growth and help deliver a sustainable future. The Company's ambition is to become the most innovative, customer centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company in the world. Dow's portfolio of plastics, industrial intermediates, coatings and silicones businesses delivers a broad range of differentiated, science-based products and solutions for its customers in high-growth market segments, such as packaging, infrastructure, mobility and consumer applications. Dow operates manufacturing sites in 31 countries and employs approximately 37,800 people. Dow delivered sales of approximately $57 billion in 2022. References to Dow or the Company mean Dow Inc. and its subsidiaries. For more information, please visit www.dow.com or follow @DowNewsroom on Twitter.
About Procter & Gamble
P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands. For other P&G news, visit us at https://www.pg.com/news.
For further information, please contact:
Gemaine Goh
Email: ggoh1@dow.com
Annabel Toh
Email: DowAP@golin.com