As disposable glove use has skyrocketed over the last three decades, evaluating sustainability options for them has become increasingly important, almost fashionable.
Of course, it would be interesting to imagine gloves that magically vanish after use or could be recycled on a grand scale. There’s much conversation surrounding gloves’ biodegradability, recyclability, or compostability. However, at least for now, these efforts may be largely impractical. To summarize, here are some of the solutions that are often marketed as sustainable and that may border on greenwashing:
- Biodegradable gloves are a nice idea, but most solutions do not meet proper biodegradability standards in states such as California.
- Compostable gloves, even when they meet the requirements, often require specialized commercial composting facilities, which are not universally accessible.
- Recycling gloves are frequently unfeasible due to limited availability, high cost, and contamination.
Even if some of these materials and practices were to become more feasible, more than 99% of gloves sold worldwide do not involve them. Their impact is just too small to measure.
The more immediate impact of improving the sustainability of disposable gloves is less about the “glamourous” promises of new materials and more about impacting the overall CO2 emissions during their production and transportation. Due to their peculiar supply chains, hundreds of billions of gloves are transported worldwide.
AMMEX – Commitment to Impact on Sustainability
Our focus is on measurable, reportable, and auditable environmental sustainability. By aligning reduction targets with climate science, we are concentrating efforts on reducing emissions. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved AMMEX’s near-term science-based emissions-reduction target: We commit to a 42% reduction in our operational carbon emissions (from a 2022 baseline) by 2030.
We are committed to long-term measurement and review of our approach to sustainability. As always, efficiency in transporting disposable gloves will remain a priority, even without established benchmarks.
For more information, visit our website or download our sustainability report. By focusing on emissions within our supply chain—areas we can directly influence—and collaborating with our manufacturers to minimize their impact, AMMEX aims to drive a meaningful impact on disposable glove sustainability.