Greentick Acrylic: A Sustainable Choice

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. Its goal of decreasing landfill without compromising the strength, durability and quality of the finished product.

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. 

Thanks to their outstanding strength‑to‑weight ratio and impact resistance, acrylics are widely used in many 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

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

These properties mean acrylics can deliver clear, tough and long‑lasting surfaces in many different settings.

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.

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™ benefits the environment in two main ways:

- By using recycled materials from acrylic offcuts and scraps, it reduces the amount of acrylic that would otherwise be discarded and end up in landfill.

- By using existing scrap pieces of acrylic, fewer base production materials are needed, so less raw material is used and less by‑product is produced.

This helps cut waste at both the start and the end of the acrylic lifecycle.

Key Features of GreenTick™ Sustainable Acrylic

GreenTick™ sustainable acrylic has a number of key features, including:

- 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

In practice, this means GreenTick™ performs like quality cast acrylic while reducing demand for virgin material.

Applications for GreenTick™ Acrylic

GreenTick™ acrylic is well suited to many of the same applications as traditional acrylics, including:

- Display stands

- POP displays

- Signage

- Exhibition displays

- Display cases

- Many more applications

Specifiers can often swap standard cast acrylic for GreenTick™ without changing the design or fabrication process.

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.