What is the environmental performance of PP spunbond nonwoven fabric?
Sep 18, 2026
The environmental performance of PP spunbond nonwoven fabric is generally above average in the industry, with the advantages of low pollution and recyclability. At the same time, there are inherent limitations of traditional PP materials that cannot be completely biodegraded. This can be fully explained from two aspects: core advantages and objective limitations
1、 Core environmental advantages
Low energy consumption and low emissions in the production process: The spunbond process directly forms a web through melt spinning, omitting multiple high pollution processes such as spinning and weaving in traditional textiles, resulting in high production efficiency and no discharge of printing and dyeing wastewater throughout the entire process. The environmental attributes of the production process are far superior to traditional woven fabrics.
Pure and non-toxic material: The qualified product is made of high-purity homopolymer PP as raw material, with an impurity content of less than 0.1%, no harmful chemical precipitation, and can directly contact the skin. It is suitable for close use scenarios such as medical, maternal and child care.
Low smoke combustion without secondary pollution: The smoke density grade of high-purity grades can be as low as 30 or below (ordinary PP is about 80), and there is no toxic or harmful smoke generated during the combustion process. There are no solid harmful residues, which comply with the EU EN 13501-1 fire and environmental protection standards.
Recyclable: The material has stable chemical properties and can be 100% recycled and processed through melting and granulation. The recycling rate is much higher than that of composite non-woven materials, which can significantly reduce the environmental burden after disposal.
2、 Objective environmental limitations
Ordinary traditional PP spunbond non-woven fabric cannot achieve complete biodegradation, and complete decomposition in natural environments takes decades or even hundreds of years. During the decomposition process, microplastic residues may be generated, which cannot meet the strict requirements for complete degradation of industrial compost.
Some ordinary PP non-woven fabrics on the market that claim to be "biodegradable" only add a small amount of starch and calcium carbonate fillers, which cannot achieve true complete degradation and instead accelerate plastic fragmentation, causing more hidden microplastic pollution. When purchasing, attention should be paid to identification.
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