Cargill Dow’s Corn-Based Textile Facility Reveals a Kernel of the Future
Minneapolis-based Cargill Dow LLC has announced the grand opening of a global-scale manufacturing facility capable of making commercial-grade plastic resins from annually renewable resources such as ordinary field corn. Read More
Minneapolis-based Cargill Dow LLC has announced the grand opening of a global-scale manufacturing facility capable of making commercial-grade plastic resins from annually renewable resources such as ordinary field corn.
Encompassing more than 16 acres of Missouri River bottomland in Blair, Neb., Cargill Dow’s new facility is capable of producing more than 300 million pounds per year (140,000 metric tons) of the company’s corn-based fiber, marketed as NatureWorks PLA. The manufacturing plant uses up to 40,000 bushels of locally grown corn per day as the raw material for the manufacturing process. The fiber, which is intended to provide an alternative to fibers made with petroleum-based plastics, is used in a variety of consumer products, including clothing, food packaging, and bedding.
“To us, value and performance are not just how products themselves perform, but should also encompass the raw materials they come from, how they are made and where the products will go at the end of their useful lives,” said Randy Howard, president and CEO of Cargill Dow. “Our goal is to create plastics today without compromising the earth’s ability to meet the needs for tomorrow.”
The company says its fibers represent a shift to a future where the raw material, the carbon source, is derived from annually renewable resources rather than the limited fossil resources used to make most conventional plastics.
“The idea of creating a more sustainable business model is to establish a new industrial system where society can go on forever without depleting the earth’s natural resources, without compromising people and helping create a better quality of life,” said Dr. Pat Gruber, vice president and chief technology officer of Cargill Dow. “We take this idea very seriously and believe we are developing a system that accomplishes that.”
According to the company, NatureWorks PLA has a lifecycle that reduces fossil fuel consumption by up to 50%, and its production produces between 15% to 60% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the material it replaces.
Cargill Dow says the result of its new manufacturing facility will be a dramatic increase in the commercial availability of its environmentally preferable fibers.
“What’s really exciting is not just the science and technology, but the scope and magnitude of what we are doing,” said Howard. “The size and scope of our manufacturing facility is as large as, if not larger than, traditional thermoplastics facilities. We are not a niche player. We are global. We are a reality, and we are here to stay.”
Cargill Dow currently supplies fibers to a number of large-scale companies, including the Coca- Cola Company, Dunlop Pacific, Sony Pacific, Pacific Coast Feather Company and Monogram.
