THE FUTURE OF GLOVES IN THE MINING INDUSTRY
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced leaders across every market sector to refine their strategic objectives, modify their execution plans and rethink their priorities. The mining sector is no exception. The pandemic has also reinforced the critical importance of worker safety. Who would have thought two years ago that PPE would become a household term? At the same time, a recent wave of natural disasters with a high-potential link to climate change is reminding the world that there might be a climate crisis that demands our urgent attention. Both of these issues have huge implications for the mining sector. Sustainable PPE sits where worker safety and increased demand for sustainable materials intersect. The industrial glove industry is leading the charge with innovative technologies that offer recycled content and materials with enhanced biodegradability to both reduce landfill waste and create biofuel that can be harnessed for clean energy production. These emerging technologies provide an opportunity to turn PPE purchases into sustainability wins.
Post-consumer recycled content In the United States and Canada, 53 billion empty water bottles are thrown
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MANITOBA MINING REVIEW 2021-2022
away each year. For perspective, that’s enough wasted water bottles to completely cover the city of Los Angeles, California every year. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the preferred material for bottled water production and is highly recyclable. Watson Gloves and other reputable suppliers are leveraging the recyclability of PET water bottles to make work gloves. As an example, Watson’s technology platform, WasteNot™, takes recycled plastic water bottles, breaks them down into small pellets, which are then melted down, and extruded into yarn. The result is 100-per cent post-consumer recycled content yarn made from wasted water bottles. The amount of Wastenot™ yarn used to make one pair of seamless knit gloves is equivalent to one 500-millilitre bottle and the equivalent to one to three plastic bottles are used in the fabric to make performance gloves. Utilizing recycled PET bottles for glove production prevents landfilling, reduces soil contamination and air and water pollution all while requiring less energy for production than virgin polyester.
Enhanced biodegradability There has been a lot of media coverage around disposable nitrile gloves as essential PPE for COVID-19 response. It is estimated that pandemic response
has generated a 45-per cent spike in demand representing increased consumption of almost 140 billion single-use gloves. Most of these gloves will eventually make their way into a landfill where they will degrade over hundreds of years. A typical nitrile glove will take 200 years to decompose in a landfill. New technologies provide accelerated biodegradation of nitrile gloves. One example, the Reclaim™ technology platform developed by Watson Gloves is an additive to the nitrile compound used in the production of single-use gloves. The degradation technology only activates once the glove is exposed to landfill conditions (combined high heat, high moisture, no light and limited oxygen). The result is nitrile gloves that will degrade in less than 12 years (ASTM-D5526) – all without any loss in glove performance. Further, these gloves release CH4 (methane) gas when decomposing that can be reclaimed as a source for clean inexpensive energy. Most modern landfills capture methane and other greenhouse gases and either burn the gas or use the gas to create energy. We now have a new circular economy for nitrile glove waste. Gloves are worn and disposed at point of use, collected and transported to municipal landfills that are designed to capture
