Greentick Acrylic: The Sustainable and Environmentally Friendly Plastic
In recent times, plastics and sustainability has become an increasing concern for many people, and society in general when it comes to the products they use. This ranges from the use of everyday consumer products and how their production processes and afterlife have an impact on the environment, to the sustainability and environmental impact of larger scale commercial and construction products and materials.
Many plastics and acrylics are not biodegradable, and can take hundreds of years to break down in landfills, creating a lot of unnecessary waste and pollution. With this in mind, production processes have improved and new innovative techniques have been developed to produce more sustainable acrylics, environmentally friendly plastics and acrylic products. An example of this is GreenTick™ acrylic which is a sustainable acrylic and has been created to use recycled materials, with the goal of decreasing landfill without compromising the strength, durability and quality of the finished product.
Let us explore some of the benefits of using sustainable acrylics and plastics and how GreenTick™ is an environmentally friendly alternative.
What Are Acrylics?
Acrylics are a transparent plastic material that often exhibit glass like qualities and in a lot of cases can be used as a substitute for traditional glass. With qualities such as an outstanding strength to weight ratio and impact resistance, acrylic makes an excellent choice of material, and is widely used for a number of applications, with some of the more widely used applications including;
- Indoor and outdoor signage applications
- Frames and display cases
- POP display and brochure holders
- Covid-19 screens
- Shelving and other retail fixtures
- LED diffusing lighting panels
- Skylights and other forms of windows
The reason why acrylics are so widely used is because they contain a number of characteristics that mean they are a better solution than other materials. Some of these performance characteristics include;
- Better impact strength than glass (in some cases the impact strength of acrylic can be up to 17 times the impact strength of glass)
- Excellent optical qualities
- Good dimensional stability
- High surface hardness
- Excellent weatherability
Environmental Impacts
Although acrylics have such a wide range of uses and applications, and have excellent characteristics that make them a superior material, the production of acrylics, like other types of plastics, is not the most environmentally friendly process.
Production
The process to produce acrylics begins with a distillation of hydrocarbon fuels into lighter groups called “fractions”, some of which are combined with other catalysts to produce plastics. Further processing is then required depending on the type of finished product. As can be imagined, for a number of reasons, this is not the most environmentally friendly process, and any way in which the production of plastics and acrylics can be minimised and reduced will have beneficial impacts on the environment.
Biodegradability
Acrylic materials are not very biodegradable and can take over 200 years to decompose in landfill all the while slowly releasing greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals into the environment. Over time, these gases and chemicals can potentially affect the air and bodies of water in the surrounding environment.
The materials used to manufacture acrylic plastic are artificial, and presently a method of production has not been discovered on how to produce synthetic products that are biodegradable or alternate environmentally friendly raw materials.
Introducing GreenTick™ Acrylic
An environmentally friendly alternative to the more traditional forms of plastics and acrylics is GreenTick™ acrylic, a sustainable acrylic which is made from a minimum of 50% recycled materials. GreenTick™ is beneficial for the environment in two ways. The first being that by using recycled materials from acrylic offcuts and scraps this reduces the amount of acrylic needing to be discarded and eventually end up as landfill. The second benefit of this process is that by using existing scrap pieces of acrylic, less of the base production materials need to be created which means that less raw materials are used and there is less bi-product produced.
GreenTick™ sustainable acrylic has a number of key features which include;
- Being recycled and not regrind and is made from a minimum of 50% recycled material
- Excellent high-gloss optical surface and appearance and light transmission
- Environmentally friendly
- Easily fabricated
- Good mechanical properties and shatter resistance
GreenTick™ acrylic is perfectly suited for a number of applications as with traditional acrylics, some of these applications include;
- Display stands
- POP displays
- Signage
- Exhibition displays
- Display cases
- Many more applications
Conclusion
Being an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional acrylics, there are a number of benefits of using GreenTick™ in place of more traditionally produced acrylics. If you would like more information about GreenTick™ acrylic contact us at Mulford Plastics today and our team will be more than happy to help with any enquiries.