An estimated 12.5 MILLION tonnes of waste ends up in New Zealand landfills EVERY YEAR, including hundreds of thousands of disposable gloves. We all know plastic waste can take years to decompose…. but did you know that your everyday disposable nitrile glove can take 100 YEARS OR MORE to completely break down? Not only does this add to amount of waste polluting waterways and harming wildlife, our landfills also produce harmful greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming and climate change.
With increasing awareness of the impact our waste has on the planet, many businesses are striving to find new ways reduce emissions and produce more sustainable, environmentally-friendly products.
One step toward reducing our impact is with biodegradable disposable nitrile gloves! Our new biodegradable nitrile gloves from Showa are designed with revolutionary Eco Best Technology (EBT) which break down much faster in BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE landfills, reducing their environmental impact.
What is EBT?
EBT is composed of organic additives and fibers that accelerate the biodegradation of nitrile. The organic materials attract microbes which consume, metabolize, and break the glove down completely within five years. The final result is biogas (such as carbon dioxide and methane) and nitrous soil.
How it works:
Benefits:
- Shelf life is unaffected by EBT (as it needs a BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE landfill environment to initiate the decomposition process)
- Fully degrades with five years
- Just as strong and durable as standard Nitrile gloves
EBT vs Other Waste…
But wait! Not all landfills are biologically active!
Active landfills require organic matter to attract the right organisms that help break down waste in a process called anaerobic decomposition.
Unfortunately, this process also generates the harmful greenhouse gases – methane and carbon dioxide being the two main ones – that contributes to climate change.
DID YOU KNOW: Methane is 28x MORE harmful (warming) to the planet than carbon dioxide? Luckily, us humans have developed way of capturing this gas and turning it into something useful!
LFG (Landfill Gas) Recovery Systems have been implemented in various landfill sites around New Zealand (and the world) to capture these biogases and convert them to energy, putting that energy back into the national grid to help power homes and businesses around the country. Any excess methane not utilised in these systems is burnt off so it does not seep into the atmosphere – this is called biogas flaring.
Check out this video from Showa, explaining how EBT works.
The Showa 7502PF Biodegradable Nitrile Gloves are now available on our website!