Design - Why do we use synthetic fibres in our plasters?

As part of our Environmental Management system, we continually work to reduce our environmental footprint and that of our products. We review and set improvement targets annually. Although natural hair in plaster was used traditionally, times are very different and it is not locally available any more. When we source product ingredients, we have to ensure that they have the correct technical characteristics (for our quality system) and we also consider the environmental, health (e.g. hair requires a veterinary certificate) and ethical credentials of of natural fibres to the market (e.g. vegans will not use horse hair, horse welfare etc) aspects. We started to look at and develop alternatives to hair that would meet today’s specifications and the needs of our clients. We therefore now offer a broad range of plasters with different fibres including synthetic fibres (often specified to add tensile strength, although we continually work to find a natural/recycled alternative and have some new natural products currently undergoing testing), but the product that is gaining most popularity is our lime hemp fibre, using British grown hemp fibres which ticks all of the boxes in terms of it being British, sustainable, renewable, grown with no pesticides or insecticides, fast growing so co2 sequestration is excellent etc. as well as having good technical characteristics for a plaster that performs. We hope this goes some way to reassuring you that we are working on many aspects to improve the quality, environmental, ethical, health and technical aspects of our products.