Do You Agree That Rubber Plantations Could Have 'Devastating' Environmental Impact In Asia?

According to an article in Yahoo! News, the expansion of rubber plantations in South East Asia could have a "devastating" environmental impact. Scientists from China, Singapore (National University of Singapore) and the US warned that more than 500,000hectares (1.2 million acres) may have already been converted to rubber plantations in the uplands of China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. They pressed for a substantial increase in forest preserves.

The researchers predict the area of land dedicated to rubber and other farming systems could more than double or triple by 2050, replacing lands currently occupied by evergreen broadleaf trees and secondary vegetation. The researchers believe that this could result in a significant reduction in carbon biomass, desiccate the region's water systems, and increase the risk of landslides through erosion.

PolymerLatex Increasing NBR Latex Prices

PolymerLatex is increasing prices for its range of NBR latices worldwide by 6 percent per wet ton effective June 15, 2009. According to the company, this price increase is necessary to compensate a part of the rising raw material costs.

Los Angeles Rubber Group Cancels Summer Outing

Los Angeles, CA -- The Los Angeles Rubber Group announced that the June Summer Outing in Big Bear, CA, has been cancelled due to less than anticipated sign-ups. A group spokesman said the economy has taken a toll on many companies who have participated in the past but were not able to attend this year.

The Language of Rubber – Part 8 (More on Ozone Attack of Rubber Products) - By John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant)

Ozone in the air will normally attack the double bonds present in polymer molecular chains. Examples of polymers or rubbers most prone to ozone attack are natural rubber, polybutadiene, styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and nitrile rubber (NMR).

Nitrile rubber is a copolymer of butadiene and acrylonitrile units with very high proportion of butadiene as in the case of SBR, hence ozone attack on NBR is quite common.

Ozone attack is common especially when the rubber is being stressed during use and is normally indicated by the presence of varied sizes of cracks perpendicular to the direction the force applied to the rubber. The density or number of cracks varies with ozone gas concentration. The characteristic cracking is known as ozone cracking.

Applications where ozone resistance is of utmost importance, the right choice of rubbers is important. Such ozone-resistant elastomers include EPDM, butyl rubber, fluoroelastomers like Viton and polychloroprene rubbers like Neoprene because with most of these rubbers, double bonds form only a very small proportion of the molecular chains. In the case of polychloroprene, the presence of a large chlorine atom prevents ozone from approaching the double bonds in the chains.

A method to determine the ozone resistance of vulcanised rubber products is described in ASTM. In one test, thin strips of test pieces are clamped with an elongation of 20% and placed in a chamber containing 25 pphm of ozone at a given elevated temperature.

The test pieces are then removed and observed for cracking periodically.

Effect Of Current Global Alert On Swine Flu

while the current global swine flu is causing some concern to the travel and tourism industries, healthcare and related industries are actually experiencing a positive effect.

Face masks and latex glove manufacturers are seeing a surge in demand of their products especially from the USA and Mexico where the flu outbreak was first reported due to high stock replenishment as many countries are stepping up prevention remedial actions.