As oil prices soar, the country is aiming to become a global hub for plastics made from plant-based materials, including sugar cane

By: Joshua Schneyer

Try to imagine a plastics factory. You're probably seeing an industrial eyesore belching smoke and fire into the sky at a city's edge. But Dow Chemical and other large plastics makers have a more bucolic vision of what some plants will look like in the future, and they're heading to Brazil to build them.

The "factories" they have in mind are more like farms: A sugar cane plantation, with 11-foot stalks for miles around, surrounding a plastics plant that runs entirely on cane, emits a fraction of the greenhouse gas spewed by conventional plants, and, by the way, generates enough extra electricity to light a city of 500,000. Dow plans to open its first such Brazilian plant in 2011, and says its cane-based product will compete favorably with conventional petroleum-based plastics if oil stays above $45 a barrel, just a third of its current price. São Paulo-based Braskem, Latin America's top plastics maker, is building its own plant for 2010 and expects its "green plastics" to sell for 30% more than conventional varieties.

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