Biodegradable Birth Pool - Birth and the Earth Deserve Better
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Birth and the Earth Deserve Better
Birth is about beginnings.
And yet one of the tools many of us love using during birth comes with an uncomfortable ending.
The birth pool.
A single-use birth pool may be used for only a matter of hours. But conventional PVC is a highly persistent material, which means the pool can remain in the environment long after the birth it supported is over. Research also raises concerns about PVC fragmenting into persistent micro- and nanoplastics.
I've always found that contradiction difficult.
If we're going to create products specifically for birth, surely we can also ask what happens to them afterwards?
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The Problem With “Disposable”
PVC is used for inflatable birth pools for good reasons.
It's strong. It's flexible. It's waterproof. And it allows us to create a hygienic, single-use pool that hasn't previously been used for somebody else's birth.
But disposable doesn't mean disappeared.
Plastic pollution is an enormous environmental issue. The European Commission describes microplastics as persistent, very mobile and extremely difficult to remove from nature once they're there. Larger pieces of plastic can also gradually degrade into microplastics.
PVC brings its own challenges. A recent peer-reviewed review describes the material as highly persistent and particularly prone to fragmentation, producing persistent micro- and nanoplastics.
We can't make a single-use product and pretend that its end of life doesn't matter.
So we decided to work on it.
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Can We Make a Birth Pool Differently?
Evia is still made from PVC.
That's important to say.
We haven't invented a plastic-free inflatable birth pool, and we're not interested in dressing up a plastic product as something it isn't.
Instead, the PVC used to manufacture Evia incorporates an organic additive designed to support biodegradation under biologically active conditions.
The manufacturer of the technology explains that the additive is incorporated into conventional plastic during manufacture. Under suitable biologically active conditions, it is designed to encourage microbial activity on the plastic and support biodegradation of the polymer itself.
Read how the biodegradation technology works
That's quite different from simply making a piece of plastic fragment into smaller and smaller pieces.
And it's also a much more specific claim than simply saying:
“It's biodegradable.”
Because the conditions matter.
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What Does “Biodegradable” Actually Mean?
This is where environmental marketing can get rather slippery.
Something being described as biodegradable doesn't mean you can throw it into the garden and expect it to disappear.
Different technologies require different environments, and actual biodegradation depends on the conditions the material encounters.
The technology incorporated into Evia is designed to work when the plastic reaches a sufficiently biologically active environment. Bio-Tec describes factors including the particular plastic, product configuration, temperature, moisture and disposal conditions as affecting the rate of biodegradation.
Their biodegradation testing uses recognised ASTM methods, including ASTM D5511, which examines anaerobic biodegradation under high-solids conditions.
Read the technology manufacturer's FAQs and testing information
And this is why you won't see us promising that an Evia pool will disappear in a particular number of months or years.
We don't currently have product-specific testing that would justify making that promise about the finished Evia pool.
We'd rather give you a narrower claim we can stand behind than a spectacular green one we can't.
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Why This Matters to Us
There is no environmentally perfect single-use birth pool.
Evia still requires raw materials to manufacture.
It still has to be packaged and transported.
It is still a plastic product.
And what ultimately happens to it depends partly on where and how it is disposed of.
But “not perfect” isn't the same thing as “not worth improving.”
We believe that if a product needs to be single-use for hygiene and practicality, we should still be asking how we can make that product better.
Not through vague green language.
Not by pretending plastic isn't plastic.
And not by making environmental promises that go further than the evidence.
But through better materials, thoughtful design, testing, transparency and a willingness to keep improving as the technology develops.
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Introducing the Evia Pool — by The BirthSpace
Evia was created to be a professional, single-use birth pool designed around the woman giving birth.
It's strong, comfortable and hygienic, and made specifically for labour and birth.
But when we designed Evia, we wanted to think beyond the few hours in which it would be used.
So Evia is manufactured from PVC containing an organic additive designed to support biodegradation under suitable biologically active conditions.
Learn more about the additive technology used in conventional plastics
To our knowledge, Evia is the first single-use birth pool manufactured using this kind of biodegradation technology.
That doesn't make Evia environmentally perfect.
It makes it a step forward.
And we're rather proud of that.
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Birth and the Earth Deserve Better
We don't think sustainability needs grand promises.
Sometimes it means looking honestly at something that already exists, acknowledging its limitations, and asking a very simple question:
Can we make this better?
With Evia, our answer was yes.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
Better.
And we'll keep working from there.
Sources & further reading
European Commission — Microplastics and plastic pollution
Bio-Tec Environmental — Plastic biodegradation technology
Bio-Tec Environmental — EcoPure technical FAQs and ASTM testing information