Frost and Sullivan has awarded a 2008 European Medical Devices Green Award to EcoGlove for a system that provides a consistently high quality glove at lower overall cost, resulting in better quality control, reduced import burdens, while, at the same time, addressing the important issues of waste management and overuse of resources in the healthcare arena.

A company spokesperson said that EcoGlove's high quality, specially formulated Tr@ce glove can be reconditioned and used again up to seven times, with the reconditioning process reinforcing and ensuring the quality and integrity of the glove.

In the current business model, EcoGlove has locally appointed service partners who supply the original glove and administer the 12 stage reconditioning process with the 'Glove Reprocessing unit (GRU) system'. The GRU can recondition up to eight million gloves annually and may be used either on a dedicated or shared basis. The system re-conforms the integrity of individual gloves and mechanically discards unsuitable or compromised gloves as clean waste according to the company.

The company also said that the EcoGlove cuts back on shipping needed for importing batch after batch of single use gloves as EcoGloves are reconditioning locally. This cuts the amount of fuel used as well as reducing the need for other international logistic services. in addition, it requires less energy to recondition a glove than to make a new one and the latex is reused rather than being discarded as waste. The carbon footprint of this product is thus significantly lower.

The Tri@ce glove was CE confirmed as a class I Medical Device in August. The GRU glove reconditioning unit has been CE marked as well. In 2008, EcoGlove had contracts with a hospital in Malaysia and is negotiating contracts in North America and Europe according to the company.

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