This Toronto company’s specialty product, Reverte™, is both changing the industry and improving the environment
Written by Samantha Higgins & Produced by Chris Kargel
Oxobioplast is greatly concerned with the environmental condition of the planet. On its website it features comprehensive statistics and information pertaining to the worldwide population explosion as well as the subsequent impact industrialized markets have had on the delicate balance of resources.
In order to counter this downward trend, the company decided to take a stand and provide a cost effective product that is as functional as it is green. Coupled with its long-term partners at Wells Plastics, Oxobioplast introduced its new Reverte™ line of resin additives used to create oxo-biodegradable plastics.
Why should Oxobioplast be the ones to bring about this change? For starters, the company, along with Wells Plastic, has ISO-certified manufacturing and accredited laboratories at which it’s able to design, develop and manufacture products to its own particular brand of high standards. Because of the labs and testing facilities, the company is also able to try out its goods in-house in order to maintain quality control, as well as to modify its products for customers’ specific needs based on environmental conditions.
Attracting the best and brightest in the science and engineering fields, each member of the Oxobioplast team works hard to maintain and uphold company standards, taking pride in its revolutionary work. Oxobioplast is a true leader in the plastics industry and continues to strive toward providing environmentally-friendly plastics for a cleaner planet.
OXOBIOPLAST REVERTE™
According to its corporate website, Oxobioplast’s premier product, Reverte™, uses a “programmable, non-toxic additive technology [that] contains no heavy metals and is utilized at a very minimal inclusion rate. This results in no change to the manufacturing process or performance of the finished product, which has equivalent or better performance and characteristics as its conventional counterparts.”
Reverte also serves as a viable alternative to banning all plastics because of its revolutionary technology, which allows the plastic to oxo-biodegrade until it becomes carbon dioxide, water and harmless biomass. It does not leave any harmful fragments of petro-polymers in the soil or release methane gas. And, unlike its other plastic counterparts, Reverte™ can biodegrade in multiple environments.
In addition to being low cost and leak-proof, Reverte™ can also be programmed to oxo-biodegrade on a specific time schedule, something that’s impossible to do with traditional plastics. Instead of sitting in a landfill for an undetermined amount of time, Reverte™ can begin to break down in as little as six months or as long as five years.
According the company website, it “uses no fertilizers, pesticides or water in its manufacturing versus the starch-based method as the raw materials for it are grown, using valuable agricultural land. [Reverte™ is] not limited by the availability of food stock and does nothing to reduce the amount of food stock available.”
Taking forested land and converting it into fields of genetically modified crops to produce starch-based plastic contributes to further reductions in the biodiversity of our planet,” Oxobioplast adds.
AN INDUSTRY REVOLUTION
But how does Reverte™ work? According to Oxobioplast’s website, the additive contains a unique two-part control package that “enhances its performance in two ways: first the additives control package is photo-initiated, which means the oxidative reaction doesn’t significantly begin before the product is discarded and exposed to UV light and/or heat.” Reverte™ therefore gives an enhanced level of confidence versus other oxo-biodegradable additives, particularly with respect to “fit-for-purpose” product life. It uses a unique pro-degradant package to controllably reduce the length of the polymer chains.
The second phase, according to the company, involves biodigestion promoters that assist the growth of microbial colonies. This speeds up and facilitates the ultimate biodigestion of the plastic following its initial oxidation.
So, ultimately, this revolutionary plastic uses environmentally-friendly elements to break the plastics down into harmless elements. In addition, the plastics have a very long shelf life and, when they do start to degrade, they omit no offensive odors.
Oxobioplast Reverte™ is a revolution within the plastics industry that has the potential to make a large impact on the environmental health of the entire planet. Earth-friendly, long-lasting, and completely biodegradable with no garbage smell? It doesn’t get much more “green” than that.
FACTS AT A GLANCE
COMPANY NAME: Oxobioplast
CEO: Roger McLelland
OPERATIONS: Innovator in bio-degradable plastics development
EMPLOYEES: 7
REVENUE: private
www.oxobioplast.com
View Digital Corporate Profile of Oxibioplast in Manufacturing Digital January 2010