Eagle Protect Sets Sustainability Goals To Reduce Customers' Emissions

South Lake Tahoe, CA /PRNewswire/ - A U.S. supplier of disposable gloves and clothing to the food industry has announced plans to work closely with their international suppliers and customers to improve their sustainability savings related to disposable glove use. Glove usage has not, until now, been factored into a company's environmental impact. However, with over 30 billion gloves used in the US food industry each year, there is ample opportunity to positively affect climate change and waste with this new strategy.

Eagle Protect PBC, based in California and New Zealand, has announced a goal to reduce 20% of U.S. glove waste by 2022. According to the company, this is equivalent to annually eliminating 65 million pounds of glove and packaging waste, 160 million gallons of water and 5,000 international shipping containers. Eagle aims to achieve this by swapping food handling companies from heavy vinyl (PVC) and thicker poor-quality gloves with high failure rates, to thinner, stronger and superiorly engineered nitrile gloves. 

Working closely with their factories, Eagle has driven the development of new gloves for the food industry which, due to new raw material formulations and improved manufacturing standards, can be thinner and stronger than most, all with extremely low failure rates. 

"Many companies have goals to reduce their environmental impact, and disposable gloves are one area of food handling where companies can make significant sustainability savings," Steve Ardagh, Eagle Protect CEO and Founder, said in a statement prior to attending this year's Sustainable Brands Conference in Vancouver. "We have successfully assisted companies in their zero-waste journey and are currently working with major food handling companies to further reduce their environmental impact."

Eagle is changing how companies view disposable gloves. Frequent rips, tears and subsequent double gloving with poor-quality gloves have historically been tolerated. "Companies are now moving towards quality gloves with their associated food safety and environmental benefits, and overall cost remains consistent," says Ardagh.

Eagle leads the global disposable glove and clothing industry with its unique sustainability initiatives and is currently involved in trial glove recycling programs in New Zealand which they plan to release globally.

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