Plastic as a raw material

Plastic is much better than its reputation. You just have to know how to use it correctly and what applications to use it for. The right choices have a huge impact on the product’s carbon footprint.

Plastic is an irreplaceable material for numerous applications and it plays an important role in energy-efficient solutions. Plastic is a lightweight and energy-efficient material and it can be processed to suit almost any application.Plastic can also be made of materials other than fossil materials. Various renewable materials can be used to produce bioplastics and biodegradable materials.Correctly chosen materials are sustainable and help prevent harm to the environment. The options for recycling, reuse and disposal of the product that has reached the end of its life cycle are determined when the product’s material is chosen. Today, material options include polymers that are made of renewable raw materials.Read more on the Finnish Plastics Industries Federation’s website

You also have environmentally friendly options to choose from

The choice of the material is made on the basis of the properties required from the product. These requirements may greatly restrict the available options. The materials available include composite, ceramic and bio-based materials. For technical plastic products, alternatives to traditional plastics, such as ABS, PC, PC/ABS, and PA, may not be available.When choosing the material for your product and considering the material’s properties, you should pay attention to its transparency, color, breaking strength, rigidity, biocompatibility, glass transition temperature, resistance to humidity, sterility, fire-retardant properties, and particle emissions. The available materials range from extremely hard materials to soft, rubbery ones.In terms of the material’s environmental impact, the matters that must be considered are

• the raw material composition
• the raw material’s production process
• the product’s production process
• the product’s service life
• the product’s recyclability
• the product’s reusability
• the disposal of the product

Various bio-based materials, bio-composite materials and biodegradable or compostable materials are already available to offer excellent alternatives to traditional fossil materials. TK-Tiimi has extensive experience in the use of these materials in injection molding production.