Artificial Grass Made From Sugarcane? Meet Classic 40 GT

A turf yarn that starts in a cane paddock

Most artificial turf yarn is polyethylene made from crude oil, run through an extruder and cut into blades. Classic 40 GT uses the same basic plastic, but APT, the manufacturer behind our range, makes 60% of that yarn from renewable resources derived from sugar cane instead of petroleum. That figure and the process behind it are APT's own manufacturing claims, not an independent lab result, so we're stating them the way APT states them and pointing to where the number comes from.

The yarn carries the "I'm green" seal, a licensed trademark owned by Braskem, the petrochemical company that supplies the plant-based polyethylene APT uses. It's Braskem's own brand mark for products made with its renewable-sourced resin, not an industry-wide certification standard, and Braskem doesn't publish a minimum renewable-content threshold that a product needs to clear to carry it. It doesn't mean the finished turf is compostable or biodegradable. The plastic itself is chemically the same polyethylene as any other turf yarn once it's made. What changes is where the carbon in that plastic came from.

The eight steps APT describes

APT lays out its Green Technology yarn production as an eight-step chain from field to finished product:

1. Sugar cane grows and draws carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere as part of its normal growth cycle.
2. The cane is harvested and crushed to extract the juice.
3. That juice is fermented into ethanol, the same basic process used to make cane spirits.
4. The ethanol is dehydrated, a chemical step that strips out water molecules and converts it to ethylene.
5. The ethylene is polymerised into polyethylene beads, chemically equivalent to oil-based polyethylene.
6. HeatBlock, APT's cooling additive, is blended into the beads before extrusion.
7. The beads are extruded into yarn at APT's Melbourne facility.
8. The yarn is tufted into finished Classic 40 GT turf.

This isn't a new idea in plastics generally. Converting sugarcane ethanol into ethylene and then polyethylene is an established renewable feedstock route used elsewhere in packaging and consumer goods, and the chemistry behind it is well documented. What's specific to APT is applying that route to synthetic turf yarn and extruding it locally rather than importing the finished product.

Why sugarcane instead of oil

The appeal of a plant-based feedstock is straightforward. Sugar cane pulls carbon dioxide from the air as it grows, in the same way any crop does, and using its ethanol as a chemical building block means less of the polyethylene's carbon comes directly from drilled and refined petroleum. APT doesn't publish an independent, third-party carbon comparison for Classic 40 GT specifically, so we're not going to invent one here. What we can say is that the underlying chemistry is real and widely used, and that 60% of the yarn's renewable content is APT's stated figure for this product.

It's also worth being clear about what this doesn't fix. A sugarcane-derived yarn still sheds fibres over its life the way any synthetic turf does, it still needs a proper end-of-life plan rather than a bin at the tip, and it doesn't change how the lawn drains or how it's installed. For the fuller picture on where synthetic turf's environmental costs and benefits genuinely sit, our guide to artificial grass and the environment and our breakdown of recycling and disposal in Australia cover that ground properly. This guide is about one yarn, not the whole picture.

What "Green Technology" refers to

The GT in Classic 40 GT stands for Green Technology, and APT traces that yarn technology back to development work for Olympic-standard hockey pitches, a use case with far higher performance demands than a backyard. That's APT's framing of the product's lineage, not a claim we can independently verify, but it's consistent with how synthetic hockey turf is engineered: dense, consistent, and built for a ball to run true across it thousands of times a match. A residential lawn never sees that kind of load, so the practical benefit for a homeowner is a well-engineered, dense pile rather than anything sport-specific.

At 40mm, Classic 40 GT sits at the taller end of our range. Our pile height guide covers how pile length changes look, feel and price if you're comparing it against a shorter option.

HeatBlock and the heat question

HeatBlock is APT's cooling additive, blended into the yarn during that sixth production step. It's a different technology to COOLplus, which APT uses in some of our other products, so the two shouldn't be confused or their figures mixed together. APT doesn't publish a specific temperature reduction number for HeatBlock the way it does for some of its other additives, so we're describing it as a cooling technology built into the yarn rather than attaching a percentage to it.

What doesn't change, HeatBlock or not, is that every synthetic lawn gets hot in direct Australian sun. Surface temperatures on synthetic turf commonly run well above 70°C and sometimes past 100°C in full summer sun, regardless of which additives are in the yarn, and that range sits alongside any manufacturer cooling claim rather than being replaced by it. Our guide to why turf gets hot goes through the causes and where that range comes from, including the reflected-heat risk near glass and Colorbond that catches a lot of new turf owners out.

Warranty and where it sits in the range

Classic 40 GT carries a 15-year warranty, the longest of any product we sell, which is a comparison within our own range rather than a market-wide claim. Like every product on the site, it ships in fixed cut lengths (commonly 5m, 10m, 15m or a full 20m roll depending on the run) at a 3.71m roll width, with wider yards joining rolls rather than ordering a custom width. The Classic 40 GT product page has an instant length-and-quantity calculator and current pricing, and if you're still comparing pile heights and price tiers across the range, the full product range is worth a browse before you commit.

The honest summary

Classic 40 GT's sugarcane-derived yarn is a genuine manufacturing choice, not marketing dressed up as one, and it's the kind of detail most turf sellers don't mention because most of them aren't buying yarn made this way. It's also a narrower claim than "eco-friendly turf" might suggest: it changes where the plastic's carbon comes from, not whether the finished lawn sheds fibres, drains differently to soil, or needs a disposal plan in fifteen years. Read it for what it is, a real and reasonably unusual choice further up the supply chain, and weigh it alongside the rest of what a synthetic lawn means for your yard.

Frequently asked questions

Is Classic 40 GT made of sugar?

No. The sugar cane's role is as a source of ethanol, which is chemically converted into ethylene and then polyethylene, the same plastic used in most turf yarn. None of the finished product is sugar, and it behaves like any other polyethylene turf underfoot, in the sun and over time.

Does the sugarcane content make Classic 40 GT biodegradable?

No. Whether the polyethylene comes from sugarcane ethanol or crude oil, the finished plastic is chemically the same and doesn't break down any faster in a garden or a landfill. The renewable feedstock changes the carbon source going into manufacturing, not how the finished yarn behaves once it's laid.

What is the "I'm green" seal on Classic 40 GT?

It's a licensed trademark owned by Braskem, the company that supplies the plant-based polyethylene, and it identifies products made with that renewable-sourced resin rather than acting as an industry-wide certification standard. APT states Classic 40 GT carries this seal because 60% of its yarn is made from sugarcane-derived renewable resources, which is a manufacturing claim we're passing on as APT's own.

Does HeatBlock mean Classic 40 GT stays cooler than other turf in our range?

APT describes HeatBlock as a cooling technology built into the yarn, but doesn't publish a specific temperature figure for it, so we can't put a number on the difference. Every synthetic lawn still runs hot in direct summer sun regardless of the additives in the yarn, and sensible siting and shade matter more than any single yarn technology.