Biobased products are manufactured using renewable, agriculturally based raw materials made from crops grown and processed right in the United States. Expanding the market for these crops will help U.S. farmers and bolster local rural economies across the nation. Another benefit of the recent Administration initiative is that many biobased goods, including SYNLawn® products, use these domestic, renewable commodities to replace foreign, non-renewable oil and petroleum in the manufacturing process.
Many people aren’t aware of just how many components of products they use every day are derived from oil, much of which must be imported into the U.S. In the past, almost all plastics were petroleum-based, but the biobased revolution is changing that. Every barrel of oil that can be replaced with a domestic, biobased alternative reduces American dependence on oil-producing countries that are often politically unstable or unfriendly to the U.S.
The Obama initiative will require federal agencies to monitor their purchasing in order to make sure that more of the supplies they buy are biobased, like the quality U.S.-made artificial grass products from SYNLawn®. The turf backing and coatings that give SYNLawn® synthetic turf its strength are made largely from soybean oil instead of petroleum. That’s good news because farmers in the U.S. are world leaders in the production of soybeans.
SYNLawn®’s exclusive EnviroLoc™ backing system incorporates Soyol™, a polymer that’s derived from soybean oil, to substitute for 90 percent of the petroleum that’s required for standard artificial turf backing. SYNLawn® also strengthens its products with BioCel™ coatings, which are made from soybean-derived urethane, replacing 60 percent of the petroleum-based polyurethane that’s needed to make conventional, less environmentally friendly coatings.
The promotion of biobased products has been a bipartisan effort for a decade. During the Bush administration, Congress passed the 2002 Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, which enabled the U.S. Department of Agriculture to start its BioPreferred® program, the original federal procurement preference program for biobased products. The BioPreferred® movement was first expanded in 2008 with the passage of the Food, Conservation and Energy Act, and the Obama initiative builds on that legislation.
The artificial grass experts at SYNLawn® have been making synthetic turf for commercial and residential landscaping, playgrounds, golf facilities and many other uses for more than 40 years. Our quality and innovation are the reasons that SYNLawn® has led the field among synthetic grass makers, and we’re proud to continue that tradition by playing an important part in the biobased movement.
