Open Collections

Wang, James

Introduction LUSH is a company that prides itself on sustainable practices, by creating their products with fresh fruits and vegetables and using as little packaging as possible to save unnecessary plastics. Materials are composted and recycled whenever possible at their manufacturing facility in Vancouver. However, latex gloves are becoming an issue as it represents approximately 95% of the wastes that go into the landfill. So the research question is: what factors prevent latex gloves from being recycled or composted? Data collection was done by conducting interviews with experts on the subject at hand, which is plastic and rubber recycling. Recommendations The best option right now would be ship waste gloves out to a company that has the expertise of recycling latex gloves. Fine Recycling in Toronto would be open to accepting the waste latex gloves from the Vancouver manufacturing facility so long as the company is willing to pay to ship the product to Toronto. The upside of shipping it to Fine Recycling is that it can help them to further their development and expertise of recycling waste latex which can lead to them potentially offering the service to companies in other industries in the near future. TerraCycle can recycle both latex and nitrile gloves at their processing facility in the state of Georgia so this option would significantly reduce waste latex gloves from the manufacturing facility should the company choose this route. Again, if the company is willing to accept the additional shipping costs and environmental impacts, then this is definitely a viable option. Transitioning to local recycling and upcycling can be done in the future if a local company puts in the time, effort, and investment to successfully develop such a process. Collaborating with other companies that are high consumers of latex materials can help to create the demand that would make such a process work. Conclusion Latex processing is mainly dictated by economics, as it must be affordable for the company processing the latex products while at the same time having enough demand for the end product. Knowledge about the process of latex composting and upcycling needs to be further developed so there are more sustainable methods of disposal for latex products. With people being more conscious about where things comes from and where they end up, they will demand alternative methods of disposal other than the landfill and for these options to be prominent within the greater community.

Text

University of British Columbia. GEOG 419

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0075683

Arts, Faculty of; Geography, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/