Dow and luxury goods company look to accelerate circular approach

Dow and LVMH Beauty, a division of LVMH, a luxury goods company and home to 75 brands, will collaborate with the aim to accelerate the use of sustainable packaging across LVMH’s perfume and cosmetic products.

 Dow claims This collaboration would enable both bio-based and circular plastics to be integrated into several of the beauty multinational’s product applications without compromising functionality or quality of the packaging. 

Bio-based and circular plastics, which are made from bio-based and plastic waste feedstock respectively, will be used to produce sustainable SURLYN Ionomers, polymers used to manufacture premium perfume caps and cosmetic cream jars. Within 2023, some of LVMH’s perfume packaging will include both bio-based SURLYN and circular SURLYN. 

Claude Martinez, Executive President and Managing Director of LVMH Beauty said:“At LVMH, with our Life 360 program, we made the decision that our packaging will contain zero plastic from virgin fossil resources in a near future. Collaborating with Dow in developing sustainable SURLYN is key as this material is used in some of our iconic perfumes, starting with GUERLAIN La Petite Robe Noire. It is helping LVMH achieve our sustainability targets without any compromise on quality.”

Karen S. Carter, President of Packaging & Specialty Plastics, Dow said: “Creating a circular economy takes every player in the value chain to commit to ambitious goals and challenge the status quo. Dow looks forward to supporting the sustainability journey of a leading global luxury brand.”

Bio-based feedstocks for the production of bio-based SURLYN include raw materials such as used cooking oil. As only waste residues or by-products from an alternative production process will be utilized, the company believes  that these raw feedstock materials will not consume extra land resources nor compete with the food chain.  

Hard-to-recycle mixed plastic waste are transformed into circular SURLYN through advanced recycling technologies. The company claims that its technology breaks down waste plastics into their basic chemical elements using heat and pressure, creating raw material that is equivalent to those made from virgin fossil feedstock. This raw material, or circular feedstock, can be used in a wide range of packaging, giving waste that is currently going to landfill or being incinerated a second life.