Most plastics today are still made exclusively from oil or other fossil fuel derivatives. That doesn't gel with Dell's intention to source its packaging materials from 100% sustainable materials.
So Dell became the first IT industry to use Newlight Technologies' invention, AirCarbon, in its plastic packaging.
AirCarbon? This is plastic made not from oil but from carbon pulled out of the air.
4% of the world’s oil production is used as feedstock to make plastics, another 4% is consumed as energy in the process. AirCarbon plastics are different. They use no oil. Instead, they are made from industrial sources of carbon emissions - like those captured by dairy digesters and methane capture. These emissions would normally become part of the air we breathe, further contributing to climate change.
“Dell is using greenhouse gases that would otherwise become part of the air we breathe to replace materials traditionally made by oil,” explained Mark Herrema, chief executive officers, Newlight Technologies. “We commend Dell for being the first in the IT industry to introduce packaging that reverses the impact of climate change. Introducing greener packaging at a lower cost per unit than traditional oil-based plastics is good for the environment and Dell’s bottom line.”
Newlight uses a biocatalyst to process the gases in a reactor, where the carbon is then pulled out and rearranged into plastic polymers that can be used to make bags or other materials. The catalysts used with AirCarbon are 10 times more efficient than other solutions, making it an economic choice that is also carbon-negative (stores more carbon in the plastic than it generates during production) with no reduction in performance compared to traditional plastics.
Dell's current pilot project will focus on packaging – specifically for the protective bags for Dell Latitude notebooks shipped to the U.S. and Canada, and Dell plans to extend its use of AirCarbon globally for both packaging and products.
AirCarbon will join ongoing packaging solutions derived from bamboo, mushrooms and wheat, that helped eliminate 9 million kilograms of packaging and saved AU$19 million. By 2020, Dell's packaging profile will be both 100% sourced from sustainable materials and 100% recyclable or compostable. The company's overarching goal is to ensure that the good that comes from Dell’s technology will be 10 times what it takes to create and use it.
