Dow collaboration extends life of reusable plastic pallets 150% - reducing carbon footprint and materials consumption

AFFINITY™ polyolefin elastomer improves the performance, sustainability of plastic pallets

SHANGHAI, March 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dow (NYSE: Dow) today 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."

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 leading business positions to achieve profitable growth. The Company's ambition is to become the most innovative, customer centric, inclusive and sustainable materials science company, with a purpose to deliver a sustainable future for the world through our materials science expertise and collaboration with our partners. 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 care. Dow operates 106 manufacturing sites in 31 countries and employs approximately 35,700 people. Dow delivered sales of approximately $39 billion in 2020. 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 Yelopack
Yelo is committed to provide our industrial customers with smart logistic solution based on shared pallet and package service. Established by August of 2018, our portfolio has extended from Yeloflex logistic service platform to Yelo Shared Pallet, Yelo Shared Container, and Yelo supply chain service, etc. Embedded with RIFD and NB-IoT technology, together with the proprietary arithmetic, Yelo provides a total solution to digitalize customers' supply chain to achieve lower cost and better user experience. All the package products Yelo provided are 100% recyclable, which is appreciated by our customers looking for a low carbon option. Yelo's operations are in many countries including China, Russia, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, and can offer our customers with shared pallet and package service within Asia Pacific region. With the vision of "Click to Global Business", we aim to build up a global network of smart logistic packaging service to better serve our customers with enhanced supply chain productivity. 

About Shangnan Pallet Sharing

As a logistic packaging manufacturer, Shangnan Pallet Sharing (SPS) developed a series of new packaging format, including shared pallet, flexible industrial bulk container (IBC), form-fill-seal (FFS) film and stretch hood film, etc. To meet the customers' need on plastic circularity, SPS also invested recycled plastic facility to convert waste plastic package into high quality post-consumer recyclable (PCR) and reuse in applications like plastic pallet. SPS owns manufacturing sites in Shanghai, Taixing (Jiangsu), Sanmeng (Zhejiang), Zhanjiang (Guangdong), etc., with a capacity over 1.5 million pallets per year.

Related Links :

http://www.dowpackaging.com

http://www.dow.com