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5 Natural Fibers That Can Potentially Replace Synthetic Materials
How products can be made more environmentally friendly
Credit: This article is based on the scientific article “A Comprehensive Review on Natural Fibers: Technological and Socio-Economical Aspects” by Azizatul Karimah and colleagues. (Full citation and link available at the end of the article)
With synthetic materials becoming more common because of specific, useful characteristics, they also have a main disadvantage. This disadvantage is that these materials are non-biodegradable, which means they cannot be decomposed by organisms. As a consequence, they easily pile up in landfills, cause pollution, and as a consequence harm the environment.
To be able to benefit from useful characteristics while being biodegradable, using natural fibers in new ways is becoming popular. Natural fibers are a natural raw material as these fibers come from for example pineapples, coconuts, or bamboo. A polymer in contrast is made from crude oil by putting together a series of repeating building blocks. For example, a nylon molecule consists of a series of carbon atoms with two hydrogen atoms attached to it:
