Today there is a strong awareness of the use of sustainable materials, in all kinds of areas. At ZFoam this is not new, we really understand this need that is marked in our DNA, so our efforts to use foams that are increasingly respectful of the environment are continuous. We also have a strong commitment to gradually replace materials of fossil origin with these new foams and to calculate the environmental impact generated by our own activity, through the Life Cycle Calculator that we have already explained you in detail.
In line with this, we want to differentiate ECO and BIO foams and make some comments about sustainable and biodegradable materials.
Is an ECO foam the same as a BIO foam?
Although the two types of foam are within our product range of ecological and sustainable foams, they are not the same.
ECO foams, such as ZFoam ECO 33 and ZFoam ECO RCL, are non-crosslinked foams, which indicates that they are easily and fully recyclable after their useful life and, in the case of ZFoam ECO RCL, we find 65% raw material recycled in its composition. This way, its environmental impact, by definition, is already less than many materials.
BIO foams, meanwhile, are made from sugar cane (as in the case of our LJ Bio foam) or from forest residues and used cooking oil (as in the case of our BIO PT and BIO PN). Its origin is 100% renewable and specifically, these last two are certified by the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC), which guarantees their correct traceability.
What does the sustainability of our foams consist of?
We must clarify that our foams are already a sustainable material, although it is true that this is especially evident in the ECO and BIO range.
But conventional foams are also sustainable in large measure, since we are talking about a material with a density of between 1.5% and 10% compared to a typical plastic, so there is a clear reduction in raw material for its manufacture and, therefore, a lower environmental impact. To this we must add that all the foams are reusable and recyclable. They comply with “the three R’s” of recycling: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
What about biodegradable and compostable materials?
Biodegradable and compostable are two terms that are not always synonymous of degradation without environmental impact. In this case applied to plastics (let’s don’t forget that foams are the result of the evolution of plastics), it is something that sounds great in theory, but is really difficult to achieve in practice, if we refer to the capacity of the material to decompose by itself into substances that are already found in nature, and in a short period of time.
Our foams are not biodegradable or compostable, but offer other advantages that far exceed these characteristics. As we have seen, they have a very low environmental impact in their manufacture due to the reduction of raw materials to be used, they are easily recyclable and, in almost all cases, a large part of their composition, when it is not 100%, comes from recycled material, sugar cane or forest residues, as well as used cooking oil. Also, many of these foams have a negative carbon footprint..
Finally, we want to propose a reflection and highlight that, in the sustainability of any material, we all have an important part of responsibility. Correctly disposing of foam pieces is what will allow them to be recycled properly so that they become part of new products, thus facilitating the path towards a true circular economy.
In short, it is always better to reduce the amount of material that must be recycled rather than generate large amounts of waste, even if they have biodegradable or compostable properties.
