What happened to good kitchen gloves?
🧤🧽 A first world problem I've been obsessed with | Issue 1 of 2023
Anyone else feel like the quality of kitchen gloves has gone down?
The annoying cycle: Dishes need washing. Kitchen gloves get worn down. Their insides become susceptible to phantom water leaks, though you don’t spot any holes. Then, there’s mold you can’t see, but smell on your fingers.
If you’re like me, you don’t want to throw out kitchen gloves until they’re absolutely un-usable, which might mean a short-lived cycle of flipping the offending glove inside-out, putting it in the fridge in hopes of drying it, only to discover moldy smells and sensations are back. Then, finally, a minor tear that means you may as well wash dishes gloveless.
As you can tell, I’ve spent so many hours of this pandemic washing dishes by hand. And squinting at the cleaning supplies section, wondering, “What happened to the good kitchen gloves”?
At Target, we see…
bottom left: “disposable” nitrile gloves (nitrile = synthetic rubber, an alternative to latex / These are the kind most frequently used in medical or food prep settings.)
right photo, center: latex gloves (latex = naturally occuring, derived from rubber trees / These are the ones I got.)
right photo, bottom right: “disposable” vinyl/nitrile gloves (synthetic materials)
And you know what’s missing? The kind of glove you look at and think, Oh good, these will last me a while.
I looked into this. So much so that yesterday, I had to take an anxiety nap (“one-hour meditation”?) in the middle of my research.
Some historical context:
Another prominent glove shortage happened during the AIDS epidemic in the 80s. Even then, regular people panic bought gloves, meaning fewer to go around for medical professionals.
Back then, there were also entities profiting from the crisis. In 1987, Malcolm Gladwell reported in the Washington Post, “manufacturers are breaking prior agreements and simply auctioning off their products to the highest bidder.”
Current factors behind “good” glove availability:
Natural and synthetic rubber gloves are mainly made in Southeast Asia, where the raw materials are harvested and manufactured, and labor is “cheap.”
There’s been a shortage of not only the raw materials for gloves, but even the ceramic hands required to mold them, which factories need in the tens of thousands.
Imports from the world’s largest gloves producer, Top Glove in Malaysia, were banned in the US between July 2020 and September 2021 for labor violations like poor working conditions. This included but was not limited to over 2,600 workers getting COVID and the company even seizing workers’ personal identification. (If you weren’t familiar with that last move, it’s an all-too-common tactic by exploitative employers to prevent their employees from leaving their shift or even the country, especially if they’re migrant workers.) Yet, the ban against their products were lifted, and Top Glove recorded record profits of $3.9 billion in 2021.
Broadly, we’re seeing a trend favoring increased manufacturability over function. As reported by Vox: “The speed at which workers are expected to produce and deliver goods is faster than ever before — and speed will always be at odds with quality …. Your goods probably have a shorter life span than they did years ago.”
With glove manufacturers (and other industries) making massive profits because of the surge in demand, there’s no incentive to make a more functional, sturdier product.
To close (and on a lighter note, because I love watching manufacturing videos), here are some screenshots that give you a sense of the steps and scale needed to produce gloves. To watch them in full, just click the links in the footnotes.
If you read to the end, wow! I really don’t know how many friends and acquaintances are as interested in this topic as me, but you must be one of them! (Or, you simply scrolled to the bottom, in hopes of more pictures or a topic you did want to read about, ha.)
Until next time, whenever that may be!
Sources consulted:
Almendral, Aurora. “A Monopoly Explains Why Rubber Gloves Prices Are up in the US.” Quartz, July 20, 2022. https://qz.com/2128295/a-monopoly-explains-why-rubber-gloves-prices-are-up
Aspen Group. “Aspen Glove | Made In Malaysia,” August 28, 2021.
Baker, Ron. “Nitrile Vs. Latex Cleaning Gloves: What’s The Difference?” MSN, November 22, 2022. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/nitrile-vs-latex-cleaning-gloves-what-s-the-difference/ar-AA146poe
Cosgrove, Emma. “US Nitrile Glove Factory to Triple Production by 2022.” Supply Chain Dive, January 22, 2021. https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/nitrile-glove-factory-triple-production-PPE-us/593818/
Gladwell, Malcolm. “SHORTAGE OF LATEX GLOVES AS AIDS INCREASES USE.” Washington Post, September 22, 1987. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1987/09/22/shortage-of-latex-gloves-as-aids-increases-use/7f150127-719e-4c83-ade3-8546fe1bcb10/
Ha, K. Oanh and Anuradha Raghu. “Now the World’s Hospitals Are Running out of Vital Rubber Gloves.” Time, March 26, 2020. https://time.com/5810448/malaysia-rubber-glove-shortage-covid-19/
Lee, Yen Nee. “World’s Largest Medical Glove Maker Becomes the Epicenter of Malaysia’s Covid Resurgence.” CNBC, November 26, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/26/top-glove-becomes-the-epicenter-of-malaysias-covid-resurgence.html
Nastah Industries Sdn. Bhd. “How Latex Gloves Are Made? Genuine Shoot From Malaysia Glove Manufacturer,” March 7, 2019.
Ramirez, Izzie. “From Clothes to Tech, Why Is Everything so Poorly Made?” Vox, January 4, 2023. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23529587/consumer-goods-quality-fast-fashion-technology
Tognini, Giacomo. “Billionaires Making ‘Boatloads Of Money’ From Once-Cheap Medical Gloves.” Forbes, February 11, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/02/11/billionaires-making-boatloads-of-money-from-once-cheap-medical-gloves/?sh=134d9fa7661c
Wikipedia contributors. “Flocking (Texture).” Wikipedia, December 14, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(texture)
———. “Latex.” Wikipedia, December 23, 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latex