Face (mask) Off: Recycle & Reuse

Fraunhofer, SABIC, and Procter & Gamble join forces in a closed-loop recycling pilot project for single-use facemasks

Fraunhofer Institute UMSI- CHT, SABIC and Procter & Gamble (P&G) have announced their collaboration for an innovative circular economy pilot project which aims to demonstrate the feasibility of closed-loop recycling of single-use facemasks.

Due to COVID-19, the use of billions of disposable facemasks is raising environmental concerns especially when they are thoughtlessly discarded in public spaces, including - parks, open-air venues and beaches. Apart from the challenge of dealing with such huge volumes of essential personal healthcare items sustainably, simply throwing the used masks away for disposal on landfill sites or in incineration plants represents a loss of valuable feedstock for new material.

“Recognising the challenge, we set out to explore how used facemasks could potentially be returned into the value chain of new facemask production,” says Dr Peter Dziezok, Director R&D Open Innovation at P&G. “But creating a true circular solution from both a sustainable and an economically feasible perspective takes partners. Therefore, we teamed up with Fraunhofer CCPE and Fraunhofer UMSICHT’s expert scientists and SABIC’s Technology & Innovation specialists to investigate potential solutions.”