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Environmental Awareness and Sustainability

Siltech is committed to our planet

Siltech advocates and follows the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and economic. Sustainability pervades our decisions both strategically and tactically. We believe that every person and every company needs to consider their impact on our planet. Everything we do has implications for all other people and for all of the animals and plants that also call Earth home. Whether we burn fossil fuels by driving cars, travelling by train or heating homes; consume electricity that is generated by burning fossil fuels or damming rivers; or consume food and other goods that require fertilizers, cutting down forests or eroding soils, virtually every action negatively impacts the Earth.

We need to mitigate these actions. While it is unrealistic to completely stop everything we do, we need to limit our negative activities thereby reducing our impact on the environment.

In fact, a major concern of today’s consumers and users of any chemicals is how they impact the environment. This includes the impact on the environment during the manufacturing of the chemicals, during the use of those chemicals and any residual effects arising from the disposal of the finished products. Of critical importance are the chemicals’ effects on the environment and the time it takes for them to degrade.

Siltech’s commitment to the environment is strong. As a Canadian corporation, we adhere to and beyond the highly stringent requirements of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We invest a large proportion of our profits each year modernizing our facilities to achieve the most efficient manufacturing and waste stream management processes possible.

Siltech is acutely aware of our consumption of energy, water and other resources. Improving effeciencies and reducing our inputs while increasing our outputs is something that drives our production every day. We also strive to develop processes that use few, if any, harmful raw materials. We have also developed sophisticated methods for capturing any harmful byproducts to make sure they are not released into the environment. Siltech also considers the downstream implications of our silicones.

Two main factors minimize the environmental impact when silicones are used. First, because such low concentrations of silicones are usually required to achieve the desired properties, any environmental effect is minimized. Second, during soil contact silicones readily degrade via hydrolysis into silica, carbon dioxide and water, thereby minimizing the environmental impact. This is supported by numerous studies that have concluded that the degradation of polydimethylsiloxanes (which are the backbone of Siltech’s surfactants) is ecologically inert and does not inhibit the biological process by which wastewater is treated.

We have done extensive research on how to minimize the use of silicones in personal care products to meet that industry’s desire for using more naturally derived products. Our work shows that small percentages of special silicones can make natural oils feel like volatile silicone oils such as cyclosiloxanes. This has allowed our customers to reformulate their products by eliminating cyclosiloxanes, without losing any performance attributes.

Also, a recent paper by our R&D team demonstrates how our additives can reduce the amount of solvents needed to make various paints and coatings, thereby reducing VOC emissions, which keeps our air cleaner.  [Read the article]

In many cases, silicones are a greener alternative to the commonly used petroleum-based products due to their ultra low use levels and higher efficiencies.  Also, unlike many chemicals that use starting materials that come from plant materials that are used to produce food, such as coconut, palm or soybean oil, our food sources are not compromised with the making of silicones.

In multitudes of industrial processes, silicone based antifoam products are used at ppm use levels to minimize foam, thereby allowing for faster output, less energy usage and less spillage.

And while humans develop alternative energies and chemical sources, silicones are being used increasingly in the oil and gas industry to better collect, transport and process the petroleum thereby allowing us to make the most efficient use of this non-renewable resource and extending the time until alternatives become available.

As our customer’s and consumer’s needs change and there is an increasing demand for more environmentally safe and efficient products, Siltech will continue to lead the way with the introduction of additional products and technologies to meet these needs. This is not only good for Siltech, but for everyone who calls Earth home.


Environmental Policy

Siltech is committed to our planet. We believe that every person and every company needs to consider their impact on our planet. Everything we do has implications for all other people and for all of the animals and plants that also call Earth home. We need to limit our negative activities, thereby reducing our impact on the environment.

Siltech continuously strives to improve our processes to protect the environment.

1. As a manufacturer of chemical products Siltech is acutely aware of our consumption of energy, water and other resources. We will endeavour to produce goods more efficiently, using less energy and water, and using fewer harmful chemicals by:
– Investing a large proportion of our profits each year in modernizing our facilities to achieve the most efficient manufacturing and waste stream management processes possible.
– Developing processes that use few, if any, harmful raw materials.
– Using sophiscated methods to capture any harmful by-products to make sure they are not released into the environment.

2. Siltech strives to create products that can be used by our customers in producing more environmentally friendly end products. This is achieved by:
– Creating new silicones that our customers can use to make new environmentally friendly products.
– Enabling customers to reduce their use of harmful chemicals either by replacing them with our silicones or by improving their manufacturing process.

3. Wherever possible, Siltech will strive to minimize pollution and waste, conserve energy and water, protect habitat, support renewable energy resources, buy environmentally friendly products, and encourage environmentally preferable transportation. Specifically we will:
– Identify and purchase environmentally preferable supplies and services for all our daily operational needs and for company events where economically feasible.
– Encourage contractors and suppliers serving or otherwise acting on behalf of the organization to meet our standards of environmental performance.

4. Employee understanding and involvement is essential to the implementation of the policy. Therefore:
– All employees will receive a copy of this policy and be educated about our company’s efforts to improve our environmental performance.
– Employees at all levels of the company will be involved in supporting our goals.

As our customers and consumers needs change and there is an increasing demand for more environmentally safe and efficient products, Siltech will continue to lead the way with the introduction of additional products and technologies to meet these needs. This is not only good for Siltech, but for everyone who call Earth Home.