Today Kimberly-Clark recognized two Big Ten Champions in the recycling of nitrile gloves – the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Purdue University.
The company highlighted success stories at the two top research universities who both use large quantities of single-use nitrile gloves. ISTC’s focus was on science laboratories and food service operations across campus. Kimberly-Clark’s successful RightCycle program has grown quickly by nurturing a supply chain for its gloves and related products so that they can be turned into eco-responsible consumer products and durable goods, such as lawn furniture, flowerpots and planters, shelving, totes and storage bins. ISTC boasts a bike rack and a park bench potentially containing from some of it’s own used gloves.
ISTC’s Zero Waste Program engineers took on the nitrile glove recycling project as a natural extension of its robust collaboration with its sustainably minded campus partners, including University Housing/Dining Services, Facilities and Services, the Institute for Society, Energy, and Environment, and the Student Sustainability Committee.
RightCycle enables the two universities, and hundreds of Kimberly-Clark’s large customers, to advance their sustainability goals by reducing their waste streams and upcycling a raw material for valuable new uses. Read more on the RightCycle Program here. The news release is also accessible here.