GREEN-DEX™ Keeps All the Performance and is also Eco-Friendly
The inventors of the world’s first disposable nitrile glove, N-DEX®, now bring you the world’s first biodegradable disposable nitrile glove, GREEN-DEX™. Showa Best Glove’s Research & Development reaches a major breakthrough with ECO BEST TECHNOLOGY™ (EBT). EBT accelerates the biodegradation of nitrile in biologically active landfills and anaerobic digesters as validated by independent certified laboratories using internationally recognized test methods. EBT is composed of organic materials designed to make GREEN-DEX™ attractive to microbial activity. These microorganisms upon consuming the EBT material excrete enzymes that depolymerize the nitrile. The final result is biogases and inert humus.
Regular nitrile gloves cannot attract enough (if any) microbial activity to begin breaking down the polymer’s molecular structure, thus leaving the process of reclamation to light, heat, mechanical stress and moisture. An innovative and truly groundbreaking characteristic of EBT is the ability to maintain the same physical properties (texture, appearance, etc.) as regular nitrile gloves.
The first known use of the word in biological text was in 1961 when employed to describe the breakdown of material into the base components of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen by microorganisms. Now biodegradable is commonly associated with environmentally friendly products that are part of the earth’s innate cycle and capable of decomposing back into natural elements.
Biodegradation or biotic degradation or biotic decomposition is the chemical dissolution of materials by bacteria or other biological means. Although often conflated, biodegradable is distinct in meaning from compostable. While biodegradable simply means to be consumed by microorganisms and return to compounds found in nature, “compostable” makes the specific demand that the object break down in a compost pile. The term is often used in relation to ecology, waste management, biomedicine, and the natural environment (bioremediation) and is now commonly associated with environmentally friendly products that are capable of decomposing back into natural elements. Organic material can be degraded aerobically with oxygen, or anaerobically, without oxygen. Biosurfactant, an extracellular surfactant secreted by microorganisms, enhances the biodegradation process.
Biodegradable matter is generally organic material such as plant and animal matter and other substances originating from living organisms, or artificial materials that are similar enough to plant and animal matter to be put to use by microorganisms. Some microorganisms have a naturally occurring, microbial catabolic diversity to degrade, transform or accumulate a huge range of compounds including hydrocarbons (e.g. oil), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pharmaceutical substances, radionuclides and metals. Major methodological breakthroughs in microbial biodegradation have enabled detailed genomic, metagenomic, proteomic, bioinformatic and other high-throughput analyses of environmentally relevant microorganisms providing unprecedented insights into key biodegradative pathways and the ability of microorganisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions.