L.D. Davis purchases this scrap material from pharmaceutical and nutritional companies, then formulates many adhesives products used every day.
L.D. Davis is North America's premier and largest protein adhesive compounder. That means as an adhesive manufacturer, we go through a lot of pharmaceutical scrap.
We are the largest purchaser of recycled pharmaceutical gelatin in the United States. Pharmaceutical companies sell us their scrap, both in hard cap and soft gel netting form, as shown above. We help reduce their environmental impact by utilizing their waste gelatin, and they help us by providing us with the necessary materials we need to manufacture our animal glues at a lower cost-which means keeping prices down for our customers. The technical gelatin we produce from the netting goes through a few steps before it is turned into our animal glue:
Prior to the 1970's, protein adhesives, or animal glues, were made from gelatin extracted from the hides and bones of cattle and pigs. While some animal glue is still made this way, a process that dates back thousands of years, the industry switched to the usage of pharmaceutical waste as the major raw material provider for gelatin about 40 years ago.
Use of pharmaceutical waste is another way that L.D. Davis Industries strives to produce green products and continue to be an environmentally-friendly company. For more information, please visit our website.
As per Sal Polvere, our VP of Technical Services who has worked in the industry for about four decades, below is an actual photo of the waste gelatin prior to grinding....the rest of us think he may have gone off the deep end. At least he knows our glue like the back of his hand.