Silicone are more eco friendly than plastics but unfortunately they are not the most green material.

What is Silicone

Silicone is a man made polymer just like plastics, with the difference of having the carbon atom replaced with the silicon atom. Because it’s a polymer its characteristics can be tuned to form rubbery like material, lubricants, or even hard materials that could be used to make alloys.

Is silicone eco friendly?

It is more eco friendly than plastics as they do not release any toxins into the environment. But since they still undergo the same nasty chemical process as plastics do, they are definilty not as eco friendly as natural rubber, glass or pure metals to list a few.

Is Silicone biodegradable?

No it is a man made material so it is not biodegradable.

Is silicone sustainable?

Unfortunately, depending on the silicone polymer to be created, it is currently not sustainable in the sense that we can not infinitely produce the material. Silicone requires synthetic chemicals to be produced, which are currently derived from fossil fuels. This is a rapidly evolving field and scientists are looking into ways to create those same synthetic chemicals cheaply using renewable sources, if successful silicone will definitely play a big role in the circular economy .

Is silicone recyclable?

Yes Silicone is recyclable, but only for 2-3 times then the material degrades significantly and can not be further recycled. Plastics also share this, glass on the other hand can be recycled infinitely.

I hope you found this article informative please feel free to leave a comment if you have any further questions and we would reply. You can read more about silicon here.

Fun Fact: I survived a missile attack!

Ahmed Abdalla

I love seeing a problem for the first time then think for hours on how to solve it, fail then try again and again and again and so on until I solve it then tear up my notebook and start again with a new problem! Before founding Treetrench, I was a PhD researcher at The University of Warwick working, alongside researchers from the STET group, on developing adsorption heating and cooling systems to help UK homeowners and businesses reduce their bills and carbon footprint. It was fun but I started to feel there was something bigger out there that deserved my attention. If you guessed climate change, energy and waste crisis you are right. While reading a research paper on synthesising fuels from carbon dioxide, I found myself asking if we had free unlimited carbon neutral energy how would the world be different? Obviously anything that was once seen as resource intensive will now become easy and doable, adopting a circular economy easy, not digging the ground for oil easy, developing sustainable materials easy, not having to pay an electricity or a water bill, super feasible! It would be the same kind of change solar panels brought to the world… only at a much, much bigger scale. This vision led me to leave my PhD (I ended up getting a masters degree for all the work I did during it, nothing wasted) and to found Treetrench! I know it’s not a one person job but we’re on track!