A small portion of the population—0.3% to be exact—deals with rashes from medical adhesives, whether it’s contact dermatitis or a skin allergy. For James Dutton, founder of PATCH Strips, this hit close to home as his son Charlie’s skin badly reacted whenever he would need a bandaid, and his other son Xavier loathes the application of creams.
At the time when they discovered this, his wife had begun using 100% bamboo to create her organic and sustainable baby wipes, which served as an excellent solution for both Xavier and Charlie’s wounds.
Incidentally, it also served as the first set of prototypes for PATCH Strips.
“The benefits of using bamboo were already clear in my mind from a sustainability and functionality perspective,” says Dutton. “I have always observed the gross wastage in the medical industry and felt we could do it better. So, it was a clear focus of mine from the beginning that if I was going to create a mass-consumed product, it would leave as minimal of an impact on our Earth as possible.”
Dutton did just that. Each PATCH strip, as well as the strip casing, recycled cardboard packaging and lid sealer sticker, decomposes in soil or any other natural element. While time varies for each, the band-aids themselves generally take anywhere from 8 to 10 weeks.
Currently, PATCH Strips has four kinds of band-aids to asses different needs. Natural is great if you prefer to keep it simple and without any enriched gauze, while coconut oil suits abrasions and grazes and aloe vera soothes burns and blisters.
“You can use all them on any wound type though,” shares Dutton. “I have mates that use the activated charcoal because they’re black and they think it makes them tougher.”
It doesn’t hurt that it’s also great at drawing out impurities from a wound as well.
As this product fully composts in your compost bin or a random pile of dirt outside of your house, these bandages are most excellent for individuals trying to go zero-waste or merely reduce their footprint on Mother Earth. Time to live on the dangerous side of life and let the scrapes, bumps and bruises fall where they may.
