Launching the first biodegradable nitrile examination glove in Scandinavia
The first biodegradable nitrile glove on the Scandinavian market to hold full medical certification – with a correction to a figure in the original announcement.
Originally published June 2022. Retained as a record of the launch, with a factual correction and current test data added in July 2026.
In June 2022 Eastwest Medico launched Prosenso™ BIODEGRADABLE, a biodegradable nitrile examination glove that meets the full quality and certification requirements of a medical glove – the first such product on the Scandinavian market.
A correction to the original announcement
The original announcement stated that approximately 1.4 billion tonnes of disposable gloves are used worldwide each year. That figure is wrong by roughly three orders of magnitude, and we are correcting it rather than leaving it in place.
For scale: global disposable glove consumption runs to several hundred billion pieces annually, and a typical examination glove weighs around 3.5 to 4 grams. The resulting mass is on the order of a few million tonnes a year, not billions. The waste problem is real and large; the number as published was not defensible.
Why the product exists
The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in late 2019 caused a sharp increase in disposable glove use across personal, private and public sectors, and with it a rise in scrutiny of what happens to those gloves afterwards. Conventional nitrile persists in landfill for an estimated 100 to 200 years.
Earlier attempts at biodegradable disposable gloves had generally failed on quality: the formulations degraded, but the resulting glove did not meet the barrier and physical requirements that clinical use demands. A glove that composts well and leaks is not an environmental improvement.
The requirement we set was that the glove had to satisfy medical glove certification in full, with no allowance made for the environmental feature.
What the product is, in 2026
The glove remains in the range and its verified data is:
Full specifications are on the product page.
What we would say differently now
Four years on, the framing we used at launch was more confident than the evidence justified in one respect: we described the glove as biodegradable without always stating the test method and duration alongside. We now regard a biodegradability claim without those two things as incomplete, including our own – see how to verify a biodegradability claim.
The claim we stand behind is the specific one: 43.0 % at 513 days under ASTM D5511, against 100–200 years for conventional nitrile, with no compromise to the medical certification.
Key takeaways
Seventeen years sourcing and supplying medical gloves and PPE to governments, UN agencies, NGOs and healthcare systems. Writes on glove standards, quality management and responsible sourcing for institutional buyers, working from the source standards rather than secondary summaries.
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