Interest in greener alternatives is widespread around the globe
Across the world, there has been a strong shift towards sustainability. Emergence of various legislation focused on sustainability across the world, inclusion of a dedicated goal by UN around sustainability to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns are amongst a few highlighting this shift.
One of the studies conducted by EU Commission on top 10 marine litter items found on European beaches highlighted presence of around 8.1% of wet wipes and around 1.4% of feminine hygiene products which are essentially some of the major products made by the nonwoven value chain. As these products are increasingly coming under scanner, there’s a strong need to find sustainable alternatives and that too in a cost-effective way to ensure greater consumer acceptance.
The quest to find sustainable alternatives begins with a sustainable raw material. If we look at the global consumption of all staple fibres used by nonwoven value chain, we could identify the share of plastic based staple fibres used by global nonwoven value chain to around 54% whereas the consumption of next best sustainable alternatives Viscose/Lyocell & Wood Pulp is around 8% & 16% respectively. This clearly indicates that Viscose & Wood Pulp are the solution.
While making the shift to a more sustainable raw material, fibre-technology compatibility is one of the critical factors to consider for the nonwoven value chain. Considering the strict hygiene requirements, it makes it further difficult to use natural fibres whereas regenerated cellulosic fibres like Viscose & Lyocell are engineered for such applications to be able to produce biodegradable nonwovens with desired performance at competitive price. Looking at different nonwoven process technologies, it’s important for the fibres to be able to process at optimum efficiency and get desired results in the product. This is important to evaluate which non-plastic raw material can become a potential solution under the recent EU SUPd ruling.
