The Suit Magazine

Natural latex has provided a green perspective in the business, promoting sustainable material that is also environmental-friendly.  Using this as a foundation, Vystar® has created a better natural latex, one that actually reduces the common allergy-causing proteins normally found in natural rubber latex without reducing its quality and performance.

This super-latex created by Vystar is called Vytex® Natural Rubber Latex (NRL).  For William Doyle, president and CEO of Vystar, the focus for creating Vytex was to improve upon natural rubber latex by reducing the harmful effects of allergy-causing proteins in latex while still providing a durable and sustainable material.  “We want to be on the coattails of natural rubber latex for all of its attributes, but then we want to lead that industry in a different direction,” he revealed.  “I don’t want to go out there and not celebrate the fact that we’re latex.  I want people to know that this is a latex product, it’s just that we’ve improved upon [natural rubber latex].”  Doyle aggressively wants to create a product that responds to latex allergies with a better solution than the common alternative made from by-products of petrochemicals.  “[The common alternative is that] you’re replacing what would be a potential allergy, with potential carcinogenicity.  And that didn’t seem to be a very smart move to make,” he said.  By removing allergy-causing proteins from the material, Vytex provides hope for the estimated 3 million people in the United States with latex allergies.   

Doyle said the process of purifying the latex is simple.  The talc, or powder on latex gloves, works to absorb the allergy-causing proteins.  Since talc is a natural substance, it is mixed into the latex material during the production process.  “We use some of the compounding chemicals that would be used anyway in producing end products, and so with that, we figured out that we could keep that same sustainability,” Doyle explained.  The latex maintains durability, but becomes an environmentally friendly alternative for customers with no harmful side effects.

Natural latex, Doyle explained, offers many benefits to the customer; the soft texture and flexibility of the glove works to fit the hand perfectly, allowing for a more comfortable feel and more freedom of movement.  “Natural rubber latex gives doctors very good dexterity, so the doctors have told us they can literally, through a [natural] latex glove, feel the smallest of the capillaries as well as the nerves,” he remarked.  It also acts as a great barrier, stopping materials from entering or leaving, and produces quality foam material with a distinctive odor.  Vytex has all of these benefits, but it also provides more.  “Where Vytex has improved upon [natural rubber latex] is that we produce a no-odor foam.  By removing these proteins as well as some of the other non-rubber particles, we’ve really got a foam that has the same good memory, it’s a pure white foam, and they don’t have to go through and do a lot of leaching they usually do to get some of the odor out of this,” Doyle said.  Because so much non-rubber material has been removed during the process of creating Vytex, balloons made with Vytex can hold air and helium longer than generic natural rubber latex.  Vytex also proves to be an even stronger barrier, and has caught the attention of companies like Alatech Healthcare, who have used Vytex as the latex material for their Envy Condom.  “[Alatech was] looking for a way -- like a lot of our customers do -- they were looking for a way to differentiate themselves from just the regular marketplace, and you either have latex condoms, or you have a polyisoprene condom,” he said.  “In most cases [the polyisoprene condom is] more expensive than what a latex condom would be, and while the manufacturers state that they really believe they have been able to remove most of those latex proteins in the rinsing process,” he added briskly, “when you buy them and put them through the protein test, you see that that’s not necessarily the case.”  Condoms made with Vytex, Doyle explained, provide the best results because of Vytex's strength as a barrier, its elimination of skin irritations that some allergens inflict on users, and its inexpensive cost.

Natural rubber latex is also biodegradable, and Doyle is a big proponent of keeping the environment clean and healthy.  “A balloon that is made out of natural rubber latex, or Vytex, would have the same staying power in a landfill as an oak leaf, so it’s going to degrade about the same time as a leaf that falls off of a tree,” Doyle said.  “Whereas if you put something like a mylar balloon into a landfill, chances are it’s going to be there during the next Ice Age.”  He revealed that Vytex also presents many benefits to the adhesive industry, and provides more product for less cost.  “Using Vytex actually gives a better yield, and they can produce more adhesive off of one metric ton [of it] than they can even off of one metric ton of natural rubber latex,” he added.  This not only saves companies on manufacturing, water, and energy costs for the adhesive industry; it also saves costs for foam-producing companies by eliminating the second leaching stage used to remove odors, and the surgical glove market by eliminating the extensive rinsing done to get rid of harmful chemicals and proteins in the latex.  “So why wouldn’t you look at something like Vytex that’s going to allow you to use something natural and still provide manufacturing savings?”  Doyle said.

According to Doyle, demand for latex soared dramatically in the past ten months.  With this current focus on the latex industry, Doyle hopes that Vytex will differentiate his company from others, and become the newest safe alternative latex product in today’s markets.  “[For] just about every latex processor out there, [I hope] they would like [to use] this process from me, and just adopt the process where they know that what they’re selling is a product, that’s got the proteins removed, as a raw material,” he explained.  “So I’m not out there to compete, really, with any other latex group going; I’m out there to just be part of the whole issue.”  And with forces like William Doyle advocating for this industry, the future looks promising for this rubber investor.

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