Materials

Aluminium (AI)

Aluminium (Al) is a lightweight silvery-white metal of main Group 13 of the periodic table. One surprising fact about aluminium is that it’s the most widespread metal on Earth, making up more than 8% of the Earth’s core mass. It’s also the third most common chemical element on our planet after oxygen and silicon.

Decompose

It’s not biodegradable

Recycling

Infinitely recyclable and highly durable, nearly 75% of all aluminium ever produced is still in use today. Aluminium is 100% recyclable and retains its properties indefinitely. Aluminium is one of the only materials in the consumer disposal stream that more than pays for the cost of its own collection.

Health

Exposure to aluminium is usually not harmful, but exposure to high levels can cause serious health problems.
Aluminium is regularly taken up with the daily diet. It is also used in antiperspirants, as an adjuvant for vaccination, and in desensitization procedures.
Exposure to high levels of Aluminium has been linked in connection with neurotoxicity, Alzheimer’s disease, and breast cancer.

Environment

Aluminium when present in high concentrations, has for long been recognised as a toxic agent to aquatic freshwater organisms.
Large parts of both the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are affected. In the aquatic environment, aluminium acts as a toxic agent on gill-breathing animals such as fish and invertebrates.
Aluminium can accumulate in plants as well. Aluminium contaminated invertebrates and plants might be a link for aluminium to enter into terrestrial food chains.

Cotton

It takes 10,000 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of cotton, meaning it takes about 2,700 litres to make 1 cotton t-shirt. When you buy clothing you, therefore “use” water from wherever the cotton was produced.
Cotton is also responsible for 25% of the world’s pesticide use. These petrochemicals are being poured into our soils, running into our waterways and poisoning our environment. The World Health Organisation considers half of these chemicals to be hazardous to the environment and human health.
Environment

Hazardous pesticides commonly use for cotton production are often found in nearby water resources. In Uzbekistan, groundwater at depths up to 150 meters is often polluted with pesticides. Around 85 percent of the population suffers from poor health as a result of unsafe drinking water.

Rain water in a Brazilian cotton region contained 19 different pesticides – 12 of which were used in cotton production.

EVA foam (Ethylene Vinyl Acetate)

Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) is a plastic made by combining ethylene and vinyl acetate. It’s very soft and elastic and it can be made into a plastic that’s like rubber, yet extremely tough. It’s considered to be a safe alternative to PVC. EVA can also be made into EVA foam, with the use of a plasticizer.

EVA foam materials are widely used in footwear.

Decompose

EVAs release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air when decomposing.

VOCs contribute to the formation of tropospheric ozone which is harmful to humans and plants, and can pollute groundwater and rivers when decomposing.

When disposed of in landfills, athletic footwear can take up to thousands of years to naturally degrade. EVA athletic shoe midsoles can be kept in contact with moist soil for a period of 12 years and experience little to no evidence of biodeterioration.

Recycling

At present, the global ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) recycling rate is generally very low. Recycling EVA foam companies are also very few. They are disposable, easily becoming white pollution, To solve this problem, it is necessary to recycle EVA foam.

Health

EVA is considered to be a safe alternative to PVC, as it doesn’t require plasticizers like phthlates, and it’s BPA free.
However, a few years ago it was found that EVA foam contained formamide. Formamide is used to make the foam soft, but it’s considered to be carcinogenic and a developmental toxin. Formamide can be absorbed through the skin, and it can also be absorbed by breathing it.

Environment

Today several companies are working to create biodegradable footwear using materials that will compost when your shoes are tossed into the landfill. One such company is Bloom Holdings LLC, manufacturing a foam product from algae found in freshwater lakes and rivers. The company uses a mobile vacuum to harvest problematic algae from around the world. You can read more about this foam Bloom Foam/Rise here.

High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

HDPE has long virtually unbranched polymer chains which makes them really dense and thus, stronger and thicker from PET. HDPE is commonly used as the grocery bag, opaque milk, juice container, shampoo bottles, and medicine bottle.

Decompose

100 to 1000 years

Recycling

HDPE is recyclable as it is one of the easiest plastic polymers to recycle.

Health

Some studies have shown that it can leach estrogen-mimicking additive chemicals that could disrupt human’s hormonal system when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE)

Polyethylenes are the most used family of plastics in the world. This type of plastic has the simplest plastic polymer chemical structure, making it very easy and very cheap to process. LDPE polymers have significant chain branching including long side chains making it less dense and less crystalline (structurally ordered) and thus a generally thinner more flexible form of polyethylene.

LDPE is mostly used for bags (grocery, dry cleaning, bread, frozen food bags, newspapers, garbage), plastic wraps; coatings for paper milk cartons and hot & cold beverage cups; some squeezable bottles (honey, mustard), food storage containers, container lids. Also used for wire and cable covering.

Decompose

500 years to forever

Recycling

LDPE is particularly difficult to recycle because of the damage it causes to machinery in municipal recycling programs; this soft plastic gets caught in the wheels and gears and can break the machines that are running to sort bottles, cans and paper. However, many grocery stores collect clean, dry plastic bags made of LDPE and send them to recyclers who turn them into new film plastic or infrastructure like plastic lumber, parking bumpers and road signs.

Health

Some studies have shown that LDPE could also cause unhealthy hormonal effects in humans, LDPE is considered as a safer plastic option for food and drink use. Unfortunately, this type of plastic is quite difficult to be recycled.

Environment

Things like plastic bags pollute our oceans and other wild habitats, posing threats to wildlife. It is estimated that hundreds of leatherback turtles die because they swallow plastic trash.

Miscellaneous plastics: Polycarbonate (PC) & others

Polycarbonate (PC) isn’t used as much in recent years due to it being associated with bisphenol A (BPA).  PC is also known by various name: Lexan, Makrolon, and Makroclear. Ironically, PC is typically used for baby bottles, sippy cups, water bottles, water gallon, metal food can liner, ketchup container, and dental sealants. Due to its toxicity, several countries have banned the use of PC for baby bottles and infant formula packaging.

Recycling

PC plastic is recyclable.

Health

There is a potential that certain types of polycarbonate could be hazardous in food contact situations due to the release of Bisphenol A (BPA) during hydrolysis (degradation due to material contact with water).

The BPA that contained inside PC has been linked to numerous health problems including chromosome damage in female ovaries, decreased sperm production in males, early onset of puberty, various behavioural changes, altered immune function, sex reversal in frogs, impaired brain and neurological functions, cardiovascular system damage, adult-onset (Type II) diabetes, obesity, resistance to chemotherapy, increased risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, infertility, and metabolic disorders.

Neoprene

Chloroprene is the primary component of synthetic rubber neoprene. Its production process is highly toxic not only for the environment but also for people working in Chloroprene factories and their neighbouring communities.

There have been various studies published about the toxicity of Chloroprene production. The Guardian has made a whole series of articles about the Reserve community in Louisiana, US, which gained the distressing nickname “Cancer Alley”.
People here face a cancer risk 50 times higher than the national average & according to the EPA, the neoprene facility here presents the greatest risk of cancer from air pollution of any factory in the US. Reserve community is mainly Black.

Luckily there are alternatives. Patagonia has pioneered Yulex, an alternative to neoprene made from natural rubber from hevea trees.
The natural rubber flows out of the hevea trees for up to 30 years and provides safe jobs for those doing the harvesting and manufacturing. The process emits 80% fewer carbon dioxide emissions than neoprene. Patagonia has made Yulex technology available to all the surf and watersports industries so more companies join.

You can read The Guardian’s “Cancer Town” series here.

Decompose

Neoprene is not biodegradable.

Recycling

The combination of different materials used in one wetsuit makes it impossible to recycle neoprene itself back into raw neoprene to make new wetsuits.
Neoprene can be up-cycled into qualified products such as a new yoga mat by shredding it into small pieces. Other examples of recycled neoprene products are boxing bag fillings.

Health

As mentioned before neoprene production is highly toxic to human health.

Environment

As mentioned before neoprene production is highly toxic to the environment.

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Nylon

Nylon is synthetic polymers composed of polyamides. It’s a thermoplastic silky material that can be melt-processed into fibers, films, or shapes.

Decompose

30 to 40 years

Recycling

Recycled Nylon diverts waste from landfills and its production uses much fewer resources than virgin nylon (including water, energy and fossil fuel).
A large part of the recycled nylon produced comes from old fishing nets. This is a great solution to divert garbage from the ocean. It also comes from nylon carpets, tights, etc.

Recycling nylon is still more expensive than new nylon, but it has many environmental advantages.

Econyl is one good example of a certified, eco-friendly, recycled nylon textile.

Environment

Producing nylon creates nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
Nylon production also uses large energy and large amounts of water for cooling the fibres, which can be a source of environmental contamination and pollution.

Paper

Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically and/or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed on the surface, followed by pressing and drying.

It is a versatile material with many uses, including printing, packaging, decorating, writing, cleaning, filter paper, wallpaper, book endpaper, conservation paper, laminated worktops, toilet tissue, currency and security paper and a number of industrial and construction processes.

Coffee filters are made from filter paper. There are many debates about which filter is better: bleached or unbleached.
Unbleached filters are made from raw paper, therefore more natural and much more environmentally friendly.

Bleached filters are whitened with Chlorine or oxygen. Unfortunately, bleached filters are not as good for the environment. First, there is an added step to the manufacturing process. Second, these filters with the bleach can pollute the environment when they are discarded, even though there is only a very small amount of bleach used. Oxygen-based bleaches are the better option here as well, as oxygen is much more environmentally friendly compared to chlorine.

Decompose

On average, it takes paper approximately 2-6 weeks to decompose in a landfill. Paper is the most prominent waste element occupying most landfills today (paper makes up for around 25% of landfill waste and around 33% of municipal waste).

Recycling

The process of waste paper recycling most often involves mixing used/old paper with water and chemicals to break it down. It is then chopped up and heated, which breaks it down further into strands of cellulose, a type of organic plant material; this resulting mixture is called pulp, or slurry. It is strained through screens, which remove plastic (especially from plastic-coated paper) that may still be in the mixture then cleaned, de-inked (ink is removed), bleached, and mixed with water. Then it can be made into new recycled paper.

Environment

40% of the world’s commercially cut timber is used for the production of paper.
Pulpwood plantations and mills endanger natural habitats.
Over 30 million acres of forest are destroyed annually.
The pulp and paper industry is a big contributor to the problem of deforestation and is partly to blame for the endangerment of some species that live in the forests.
The life cycle of paper is damaging to the environment from beginning to end. It starts off with a tree being cut down and ends its life by being burned – emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Paper production uses up lots of water. An A4 paper requires 10 litres of water per sheet.
Most of the materials in landfills are made of paper. When paper rots, it emits methane, a greenhouse gas. When it is burned or composted, carbon dioxide.

PCR (post consumer recycled)

Post-consumer recycled content often referred to as PCR, is material that is made from the items that consumers recycle every day, like aluminium, cardboard boxes, paper, and plastic bottles. These materials are typically collected by local recycling programs and shipped to recycling facilities to be sorted into bales, based on the material. The bales are then purchased and melted (or ground) into small pellets and moulded into new items. The new PCR plastic material can then be used for a variety of finished products, including packaging.

PCR packaging is manufactured with a film that is made from recycled materials. In general, PCR packaging cannot be recycled again since it’s already made from recycled materials. This allows brands to fulfil their sustainability goals, without relying on the consumer to recycle or compost the package after use.

Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT)

Polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) is a semi-crystalline thermoplastic material belonging to the polyester family.
Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT) is used for housings in electrical engineering, but also in automotive construction as plug connectors and in households for example in showerheads or irons. It is also found processed into fibres in toothbrushes, coffee capsules, false eyelashes and is used in the keycaps of some high-end computer keyboards because the texture is highly resistant to wear and discolouration due to UV radiation.
PBT can also be made into yarn. This has a natural stretch similar to Lycra and can be incorporated into sportswear. Due to its chlorine resistance, it is commonly found in swimwear.
Coffee capsules issue:

Coffee pods are usually made from a combination of plastics and aluminium with organic matter contained inside. It can take 150 to 500 years for these pods to break down in landfill.

Aluminium itself is recyclable matter and can be reused infinitely. The issue with coffee pods lies in their small size, making them difficult to recycle as resource recovery centres are generally not equipped to handle items so small. What will usually happen, if you put your coffee pod into the recycling bin, is that it will simply fall through the filtering screen and become a contaminant in the recycling system. This means it ends up sitting in a landfill anyway, putting your good recycling intentions to complete waste.

Decompose

It’s non-biodegradable.

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE)

PET is also known as a wrinkle-free fibre. It’s different from the plastic bag that we commonly see at the supermarket. PET is mostly used for food and drink packaging purposes due to its strong ability to prevent oxygen from getting in and spoiling the product inside. It also helps to keep the carbon dioxide in carbonated drinks from getting out.
Although PET is most likely to be picked up by recycling programs, this type of plastic contains antimony trioxide—a matter that is considered as a carcinogen—capable of causing cancer in living tissue. The longer a liquid is left in a PET container the greater the potential for the release of the antimony. Warm temperatures inside cars, garages, and enclosed storage could also increase the release of the hazardous matter.
Decompose

100 to 1000 years

Recycling

PET is recyclable but PET bottles can only be used to make lower grade products, such as carpets.

Health

PET can be very toxic and has been linked to disrupting hormonal growth and carcinogens. Keep out of the sun to prevent toxins leaking into the container.

Polypropylene (PP)

Stiffer and more resistant to heat, PP is widely used for hot food containers. Its strength quality is somewhere between LDPE and HDPE. Besides in thermal vests, and car parts, PP is also included in the disposable diaper and sanitary pad liners.

Decompose

These decompose slowly over 20-30 years.

Recycling

While polypropylene (PP) is the most versatile and easiest to recycle polymer and one of the most widely used materials in packaging for consumer goods, this packaging is not widely recycled. Additionally, PP is virtually nonexistent as a food-grade recycled material because of the inability to separate food-grade PP from nonfood-grade PP.
When recycled it’s recycled into nonfood-packaging applications, such as crates and bins, or ends up in landfills or incinerators.

Health

Some studies have shown PP can also cause asthma and hormone disruption in human.

Apart from toxic additives in PP such as lead and cadmium. Incineration may release dioxins and vinyl chloride, both of which are poisonous.

Polypropylene and Paper

Most brands of bagged tea contain plastic. With millions upon millions of cups consumed daily, this adds up to a lot of plastic.
In order for the tea paper bags to seal up and keep their shape in hot liquid, a plastic polymer, namely polypropylene, must be added. Even though the amounts of plastic found in tea bags is minimal and vary between manufacturers it adds up to quite a bit when you look at the big picture.
Decompose

Due to the plastic content, conventional tea bags cannot completely decompose. This makes them a bad option for compost material and the environment.

Health

Like most plastics, polypropylene is known to adversely affect the body’s endocrine system.

Polystyrene or Styrofoam (PS)

Polystyrene is the Styrofoam we all commonly used for food containers, egg cartons, disposable cups and bowls, packaging, and also bike helmet. When exposed with hot and oily food, PS could leach styrene that is considered as brain and nervous system toxicant, it could also affect genes, lungs, liver, and immune system. On top of all of those risks, PS has a low recycling rate.

Decompose

500 years to forever

Recycling

Styrofoam is not biodegradable and cannot be recycled, which means that Styrofoam cups contribute to landfill trash.

Environment

Chemicals are used in the production of Styrofoam, such as benzene which are harmful to the environment.

Polyurethane (PU)

Polyurethanes are one of the most versatile plastic materials. The nature of the chemistry allows polyurethanes to be adapted to solve challenging problems, to be molded into unusual shapes, and to enhance industrial and consumer products.

It does not matter where you look, you are likely to find polyurethanes. Polyurethanes can be found in mattresses, couches, insulation, liquid coatings and paints, tough elastomers such as roller blade wheels, soft flexible foam toys, some elastic fibers, and many other places and applications.

Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

PVC is typically used in toys, blister wrap, cling wrap, detergent bottles, loose-leaf binders, blood bags and medical tubing. PVC or vinyl used to be the second most widely used plastic resin in the world (after polyethylene), before the manufacture and disposal process of PVC has been declared as the cause of serious health risks and environmental pollution issues.

Decompose

500 years to forever

Recycling

A major problem in the recycling of polyvinyl chloride is the high chlorine content in raw PVC and high levels of hazardous additives added to the polymer to achieve the desired material quality. As a result, PVC requires separation from other plastics before mechanical recycling. PVC products have an average lifetime of 30 years, with some reaching 50 or more years. This means that more PVC products are reaching the end-of-life and entering the waste stream, and the amount is likely to increase significantly in the near future.

Health

In the term of toxicity, PVC is considered as the most hazardous plastic. The use of it may leach a variety of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, lead, dioxins, mercury, and cadmium. Several of the chemicals mentioned may cause cancer; it could also cause allergic symptoms in children and disrupt the human’s hormonal system. This is why PVC is better best to be avoided at all cost.

Silicone

Silicones or siloxanes, as they are also known, are something of a hybrid between synthetic rubbers and synthetic plastic polymers. They can take on different forms and be used to make malleable rubberlike items, hard plastic-like resins, and thick spreadable fluids.

Silicones have plastic-like properties: flexibility, malleability, clarity, temperature resistance, and water resistance. Like plastic, they can be shaped or formed and softened or hardened into practically anything. Since they’re easy to clean, nonstick, and nonstaining, they’re popular for cookware and kitchen utensils, too.

Decompose

It’s not bio-degradable. It takes anything from 50 to 500 years to decompose.

Recycling

Silicone poses an environmental threat because it is rarely recycled. Although silicone products can be collected by specialized recycling companies that will typically down-cycle them into oil used as a lubricant for industrial machines, it is rarely accepted in municipal curbside recycling programs. Therefore, just like plastics, not only can silicone only be down-cycled, but most of it just ends up in landfills where it won’t biodegrade for hundreds of years.

Health

Many experts and authorities consider silicones to be nontoxic and safe for contact with food and drink.

While the scientific evidence is weak in pointing a smoking gun at silicones, the questions and uncertainty are there, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on them, especially given the growing concerns about endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Siloxanes are also present at detectable levels inland, air, and water, and given their durability, they tend to persist in the environment for a long time.

Environment

Silicone is arguably more environmentally friendly than plastic in kitchen applications, as plastic is not as hardy or long-lasting as silicone is — and silicone is more inert than plastic, which means it has a lower chance of leaching chemicals into food when used for food storage. Using silicone in kitchenware can be a good option as long as you maintain it to ensure it has a long lifespan, and do your best to recycle it once you can no longer use it.

Super Absorbent Polymers (SAP) and Rayon

Super Absorbent Polymers (also called slush powder) can absorb and retain extremely large amounts of a liquid relative to its own mass.

The largest use of SAPs is found in personal disposable hygiene products, such as baby diapers, adult diapers and sanitary napkins. SAP was discontinued from use in tampons due to 1980s concern over a link with toxic shock syndrome.

It turns out that most pads and tampons aren’t actually made with cotton. Most are made of synthetic material like rayon or SAPs (Super Absorbent Polymers). These materials are often bleached with chlorine to give them that pristine white look. Yes, some pads and tampons are made with cotton—but it tends to be traditionally grown cotton as opposed to organic cotton.

Apart from cotton, rayon (synthetic fiber derived from wood pulp) is also used in your sanitary pads. Rayon is cheaper than cotton and helps to enhance the absorption capacity of pads, but also contains dioxin from the bleaching process.

Dioxin is linked to cancer in the ovaries, bladder, breasts, and uterus. Dioxins also cause Pelvic Inflammatory Diseases and Endometriosis.

Conventionally grown cotton is heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides, and these chemicals can stay on the cotton long after it has been harvested. Side effects of exposure include infertility, hormonal disruption, thyroid malfunction, diabetes, endometriosis, and depression.

EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) studies found the sanitary napkins emitted chemicals, like styrene, chloroethane and chloroform. The World Health Organization classifies styrene as a carcinogen. And the EPA says short-term exposure to high concentrations of chloromethane can have neurological effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says high levels of exposure to chloroethane can result in a lack of muscle coordination and unconsciousness.

Decompose

Averagely, sanitary pads will require at least 500 years before they biodegrade.

Recycling

Sanitary pads cannot be recycled because of sanitary or health concerns and because of the materials they are made with.

Health

As already mentioned above, sanitary pads and tampons can cause different health risks.

Environment

Most women will menstruate for about 40 years in total, bleeding for about five days a month, or about 2,400 days over the course of a lifetime which is about six and a half years.

On average, a woman uses 350 packs of plastic sanitary pads in her lifetime.

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Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU)

Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) is a thermoplastic elastomer used to produce articles characterised by abrasion resistance, toughness, elasticity, flexibility and resistance to oils and greases. Lighter than metal, it has greater abrasion resistance than rubber, bonds easily to surfaces & can also be used as a malleable engineering plastic or as a replacement for rubber or cast urethane.

TPU has many applications including automotive instrument panels, caster wheels, power tools, sporting goods, medical devices, drive belts, footwear, inflatable rafts, and a variety of extruded film, sheet and profile applications.

Recycling

It’s possible to recycle TPU in two ways: mechanical and chemical.
Mechanical processes include chopping or grinding the virgin TPU down so that it can be compression molded into a new product or bonded together using various processes.
Chemical recycling processes break TPU down into its chemical constituents, which can then be used to create new raw materials, including more TPU.