Information

Which are the properties of polypropylene (ΡΡ)?
• Extremely strong, you can crease it millions of times without braking.
• Resistant to water and most encountered chemicals.
• Resistant to high temperatures (125οC).
• Food and toy approved - directive EN71 #3.
• Environmentally friendly.

How friendly to the environment is polypropylene?
Polypropylene is 100% recyclable. It consists of carbon and hydrogen and when burned it does not produce toxic gases or waste (it only gives off carbon dioxide and water vapour). It can be recycled, incinerated or land filled without any harm to the environment.

How friendly to the environment is PVC?
PVC is produced from 45% crude oil and 55% salt. It can be recycled in items such as pipes, floor tiles, and soles. The salt of PVC can be recycled in the production of chlorine. Due to the limited amount of crude oil, incineration of PVC produces less carbon dioxide than other plastics with a 100% crude oil base. The incineration of PVC produces hydrochloric acid, a gas that can be filtered in modern incinerators.

How friendly to the environment are plastics compared to other materials?
There is the idea that plastics are less friendly to the environment compared to other materials, such as paper, because they need more time to be recycled if let alone in nature. If we consider the production side of each material and what it means in terms of natural resources, we will see that plastics have a lower impact to the environment. The production of glass bottles consumes more oil compared to the production of plastic bottles. The production of paper consumes huge amounts of energy, much more compared to plastics. The production of the extra amount of energy means more natural resources consumed and has its own impact to the environment. Paper production has another impact, the thermal pollution of the rivers. (The production of paper requires huge quantities of water) Finally, the individual properties of plastics, such as the great strength of PP, result in sensible use of natural resources. For example a binder made of PP can stand up to more that 20 years of use. It has been estimated that without plastics the general waste volume would have a severe increase.

Does Duroflex recycle its materials?
Yes, we recycle the majority of the remaining from our production.