How sustainable is Jesmonite?
Jesmonite is a material that I worked with for over 8 years and despite all this experience found it really hard to completely understand the sustainability credentials of this material. So I decided to take this opportunity to speak to the team at Jesmonite again and ask the questions about the materials that had always been bugging me
First things first, Jesmonite is a brand name and not a name of a material. Jesmonite is based in the UK and produces a number of casting materials. Their most popular material is probably AC100, which is the material you are most likely to see made into homeware items. However when Jesmonite was first produced it was primarily used within the world of architecture and set design.
AC100 is a water-based acrylic resin and gypsum composite. It is versatile, easy to work with, and suitable mainly for indoor and decorative use. AC630/730/830 are a group of cement-based composites. They behave more like cement than resin and are suitable for outdoor use, from experience they are definitely trickier to work with than the AC100 and require a lot more patience and a bit more knowledge!
When these materials were developed back in the 1980's they were developed as safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives to epoxy and cement. The main selling point of these materials was that they contained no VOCs making them much safer to work with.
Architectural elements in Jesmonite AC730
Additionally, the technology that was developed around these materials such as quadaxial matting also allows for the materials to be applied in a really lightweight way, reducing the amount of material needed. This became useful for producing cladding where reducing the weight was really essential. It’s worth noting the quadaxial matting is a fiberglass fabric and really isn’t that nice to work with. It requires the appropriate PPE and if I was ever going to work with Jesmonite again I would try to use a natural alternative.
When Jesmonite refers to being 'eco' they are referring to the fact that the materials are non-toxic and contain no VOC's. AC100 is much safer to work with than other casting resins like epoxy. VOCs can be very harmful to human health. If you don’t know exactly what VOCs are I often describe them as the chemical you can smell in conventional paint and can make you feel dizzy. AC100 provides a material that is easy and safe to work with. I think this is where a lot of the confusion around Jesmonite’s eco credentials arises and the main benefit I see is that they have created a casting resin that is nicer to work with.
All of Jesmonite’s materials contain an acrylic element. Acrylic is just another word for plastic which means this element of the material is derived from petroleum. The acrylic content is very very low and most of the liquid element is water, however, it is worth taking this acrylic content into consideration. It is the acrylic within the material mixture that makes it more durable, however, is problematic for recycling. As Jesmonite is worked with, sanded, or equipment is washed, this acrylic could be making it’s way into waters and the earth as microplastics.
The gypsum element of AC100 is also complex. Gypsum is a naturally occurring material and is mined in the UK, it is used in all sorts of products from plasterboard to fertiliser. It is inherently a finite resource however UK stocks are abundant. The good thing about gypsum being used in Jesmonite is that it is sourced locally and travels around 4 hours to get to Jesmonite’s production facilities. So it’s a bit of a double-edged sword, being a local and natural material but ultimately a finite resource.
All types of Jesmonite can be hard to recycle. There are some things people using the material can do within their own practices such as chipping and recasting material that is broken. However, because it is a composite that sets using an exothermic reaction, once it's set there not much going back. The AC630/730/830 group of materials can be recycled through local rubble recycling centers, this rubble gets used as road gravel or filler material in construction. AC100 is currently more tricky to recycle. Because it is essentially plaster it should be recycled via the same route as plaster and plasterboard, but there currently aren't great recycling systems in place in the UK. I did some research into gypsum recycling rates and these are currently very low. In 2021 British Gypsums plasterboard utilised 6% recycled content. Gypsum is infinitely recyclable so there are huge opportunities for gypsum to be recycled in the UK with the right infrastructure.
Olivia Aspinall Studio x Ornamental Grace using AC100
One of the most frustrating things for me when working with Jemsonite was the plastic packaging. The material needed to be protected properly when being shipped which means that currently, the material arrived in very thick plastic bottles and buckets. The powder buckets are less of a problem as Jemsonite provides an option to purchase these in paper bags, however, the liquid comes in very strong plastic containers that are hard to clean properly for reuse and hard to recycle. At one point Jesmonite were offering a take-back scheme for their packaging, but there ere some serious flaws in this system. When i spoke to Jesmonite they said that packaging was something that they were looking at improving, so I will keep an eye our for any changes that are made.
Jesmonite is by no means a miracle material but can be seen as a step in the right direction. For me, the main benefits are the absence of VOCs making these materials much safer to work with, and the relatively simple UK supply chains.
As a brand, i think Jesmonite could do a better job of being clearer about the sustainability credentials of their materials to avoid the word ‘eco’ being thrown around. I would like to see the, digging more into the specifics of each material and also being more transparent about their supply chains.