Single-use face masks get new life thanks to Regina engineer | 24CA News
A University of Regina professor who’s spent many years researching the best way to recycle waste is popping her consideration to single-use face masks.
It’s her means of tackling a seemingly insurmountable, world drawback introduced on by plastic private safety tools.
“I grew up on a farm, so we’re used to taking baler twine and barbed wire to fix things,” mentioned Denise Stilling. “Re-purposing and re-using is part of my DNA as a Saskatchewan farm girl.”
Stilling, a mechanical engineering affiliate professor, has experimented for years with melting down waste merchandise like outdated tires and grain luggage into new supplies like pavement blocks.
When face masks had been mandated in sure public locations to sluggish the unfold of COVID-19, she discovered her subsequent problem.
“Once the pandemic hit, and you saw all these masks littering the sidewalks and coming in our waterway, that’s when I went — let’s do masks.”
Hundreds of billions of masks within the trash
A 2020 research instructed 129 billion masks had been used around the globe each month at the moment.
Many of the single-use masks are made with polypropylene plastic, which is a materials that does not break down for tons of of years. Though private protecting tools is a device to assist sluggish the unfold of COVID, researchers and environmentalists have flagged the damages the plastic causes because the begin of the pandemic.
Stilling hopes that may change.
“What a great opportunity if we look at our landfills that are filled,” she mentioned.
“If we don’t have to worry about the contamination, we can use sand and dirt as an additive, we’ve got a raw source that doesn’t cost us hardly anything.”
WATCH| See how single-use face masks are changed into recycled paving blocks:
Denise Stilling has now discovered a means to assist preserve all the single-use face masks from clogging up our landfills. The masks are shredded and blended with materials like sand or outdated rubber earlier than being put in a mildew and baked at 200 levels Celsius. The University of Regina engineer says this can be a nice alternative to repurpose the masks into the whole lot from chopping boards to jewellery and paving bricks.
Face masks: a baking ingredient?
In a basement lab on the University of Regina, there are greater than a dozen rubbish luggage and Tupperware containers filled with used masks. Stilling gathered them from receptacles on campus.
She waits a major period of time earlier than utilizing them in order that the virus can die off, and she will safely deal with the fabric.
First, she removes the ear loops and metallic nostril piece. Then, she manually cuts the masks into strips. Those strips go right into a shredder, which pumps out a fluffy materials.
Then, Stilling mixes the fluff with different waste merchandise resembling outdated tires and sand. She additionally provides olive oil to bind them.
That combination goes right into a compression mould, which bakes in a convection oven at 200 C for two-and-a-half hours.
The ensuing materials comes out in a tile form. Stilling then assessments that materials for stretchiness and power.
“If it’s something brittle,” she mentioned, holding up a skinny tile, “then as you can see, this would make a great clip board. I can make this into rulers.”
Stilling is engaged on totally different recipes. The materials will be made into something from counter tops to pavement blocks, relying on what she makes use of, she mentioned.
Small bit to assist the longer term
Stilling would not do the work alone. She’s recruited graduate college students because the fall of 2021 to run assessments and experiment with mixtures.
Some college students say this work is necessary since their technology will probably be pressured to take care of plastic air pollution.
“Right now, there’s more awareness among people regarding pollution,” mentioned Anaamalaai Annamalai Senthilnathan, a 24-year-old graduate scholar serving to with the experiments.
“Most places are banning single-use plastic and finding alternatives. That’s one solution, but what are we going to do with the plastic that exists right now? We have to recycle it.”
Stilling mentioned she’s doing her half to assist the atmosphere by developing with the prototypes and the supplies. She hopes others like entrepreneurs or governments can tackle the subsequent step: doing one thing with it.
