Exploring Eco-Friendly Glues and Adhesives – A Sticky Situation

We all remember the days back in elementary school when we created cards for our moms, and posters for the holidays. All those lovely trinkets our moms still have stashed away somewhere were made possible with the aid of that good old Elmer’s glue. The fact is that in addition to crafting, glues and adhesives are frequently used in our everyday lives.

When you think about it packaging, grocery bags, wallpaper, laminating, envelops and paper towel roles all use some form of adhesive. What makes an adhesive green or not boils down to 3 issues:

What is it made of?
Is that material sustainable?
What environmental impact will it have when it is discarded?

As with any product we buy, we need to know what harm and possible environmental impact its use may cause.

While there are hundreds of options in the market glues and adhesives can be categorized as either being synthetic or naturally derived, and reactive or non-reactive. There is the familiar Elmer’s glue and similar glues, which are PVA, polyvinyl acetate, in water. These white looking liquid glues can vary in what gets added to them but they still contain PVA. These glues release toxic fumes if burned but are non-toxic to humans and biodegradable. So two points to old-fashioned white glue, for being biodegradable and nontoxic — but not 2 out of 3 because polyvinyl is a petrochemical product so it’s made from substances found in oil or natural gas. And we’d like to stay away from that. In fact, when looking at glues in general it’s hard to find a perfect score.

Synthetic resin glue (one part epoxy) like multipurpose glues, are made of petrochemicals, are toxic to aquatic systems and give off solvent fumes that are irritants to humans.
Two-part epoxy glue, and some chemicals in the resin can cause developmental problems in animals and humans. Epoxy resins are largely petroleum (oil) derived.
Latex-based glue, like rubber cement. Use either synthetic or natural latex. Natural latex is biodegradable but some people have allergies to it. And synthetic latex is made by the petrochemical industry using oil derivatives.
Super glue, or cyanoacrylate glues can bind to organic material; it is made from formaldehyde and other petrochemical materials.
Heat-seal adhesives use heat to activate and are commonly used in packaging on assembly lines. They are thermoplastics and made by the petrochemical industry.

All that is fine and dandy but it’s not looking like glues are perfectly eco-friendly. How can we make a green decision or at least know which of these is the best pick for the environment? Generally speaking, sustainable adhesive options include aqueous latex-based or starch-based glues. These usually solvent free adhesives use about 80 percent less energy to manufacture and their use results in about 75 percent less carbon emitted. Latex can be harvested from the sap of trees, and starch adhesive powder can be harvested from the roots and seeds of plants like corn, potatoes, wheat, rice or tapioca.

But these types of glues may not be up to snuff for every adhesive needing job. For example, to create bamboo flooring something with a little more adhesive power is needed. In the process bamboo is shredded and then pressed and glued similarly to plywood. Bamboo wood products are sometimes advertised as using UF free resin. UF, or Urea formaldehyde as the name implies contains formaldehyde, which until 1982 was used in home insulation before being banned as a carcinogen, cancer causer, by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety commission.

So having no UF is great for us, but what about the environment? Non-formaldehyde resins include, glycols, glycerols and amines. Glycols are an organic compounds that belong to the alcohol family, glycerols are a byproduct in the formation of soap, but are is also made synthetically from propene (an oil product). And amines are also made from oil.

The bottom line is that modern synthetic resins made from fossil sources like oil are not biodegradable. And can only be burned under strict precautions due to toxic emissions. Other than the few biodegradable options, most glues take a long time to deteriorate as they are designed to be resistant to weathering. Not to mention that many glues, adhesives and resins use compounds from the petrochemical industry, so they are connected to the use of fossil fuel and natural gas. If you want to have a minimal environmental impact, it’s best to minimally use such adhesives until new more eco-friendly options become widely available.

Which begs the question, why even use adhesives in the first place, why do we even need them? Bamboo, even though it’s hollow, can be cut and shaped as is without being pressed into planks. Keeping bamboo in its natural form eliminates the need for shredding and using resins in the first place.

And what about no glue packaging? There are designs out there, and it would cut down production costs and help us avoid the sticky situation altogether. Perhaps glue-less packaging will be the first step towards limiting the amount of adhesives in our lives.

related: more green tips from The Alternative Consumer