The Quest for a Disposable Mask That Won’t Pollute
Companies experiment with
ways to make the plastic used in most face coverings biodegradable, so it won’t
threaten marine life.
By
K Oanh Ha
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December
22, 2021, 9:00 PM GMT
ILLUSTRATION:
DEREK ABELLA FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
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Since the beginning of the pandemic two years ago, global production
of face masks has rocketed to 129 billion a month from just
an estimated
8 billion in all of 2019. While they’ve helped protect humans
from Covid-19, the masks—which today are mostly made from plastic fibers that
can take hundreds of years to disintegrate—are a threat for creatures that
dwell in streams, rivers, and oceans. Almost 1.6 billion of the face coverings
likely ended up in the seas in 2020, based on a conservative assumption by the
marine conservation nonprofit OceansAsia, which estimates about 3% of masks
made that year ended up as litter. Out in the open, their fibers break up into
microplastics that are impossible to collect far more quickly than plastic
bags, making them a bigger threat than plastic bags, according to a University
of Southern Denmark study.
“Plastic pollution was
already one of the greatest threats to our planet before the coronavirus
outbreak,” United Nations official Pamela Coke-Hamilton said
in a report from the organization’s Conference on Trade and
Development. “The sudden boom in the daily use of certain products to keep
people safe and stop the disease is making things much worse.”
To address that problem, dozens of manufacturers around the
world are working on biodegradable masks. Some are made from new plastics said
to self-destruct in a few months. Others use a plastic substitute made from
corn starch, sugar cane, and other sugars. And a few are even embedded with
seeds that germinate into meadow flowers.
“Biodegradable masks will be a big market with a lot of demand
from governments who are seeing what a big problem mask pollution is becoming,”
says Francois Dalibard, chief executive officer of Groupe Lemoine, a French
company that manufactured 500 million face masks this year. “The first ones to
offer it will have a big advantage.”
U.K. startup Polymateria Ltd. has patented a formula that uses
about a dozen chemicals—rubbers, oils, desiccants—added to plastics during
manufacturing. The mix can be adjusted to create soft plastic fibers used in
masks, thin films for food packaging, or more rigid materials used to make cups
or drink pouches. The products can be customized to self-destruct after a
certain time, with the additives helping turn the plastic into a wax that’s
fully digested by natural bacteria and fungi in about a year.
“The sudden
boom in the daily use of certain products to keep people safe and stop the
disease is making things much worse”
Polymateria worked with BSI, the U.K.’s national standards body,
to create what it says are the industry’s first standards for measuring the
biodegradability of the most littered type of plastic, polyolefins. Plastic
products can be certified as meeting the
standard by laboratories around the world by measuring how much
plastic has been reduced to a harmless wax and testing to make sure no
hazardous substances are left behind.
Although several companies offer certification for biodegradable
plastics, verifying claims that a plastic material is biodegradable is
difficult. “Biodegradation of plastics is a complex process that depends on
both the material itself and the conditions of the environment in which it
takes place,” says Nicole Grobert, chair of the Group
of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission. To assess
whether a polymer is biodegradable, it’s important to develop “coherent
standards for testing and certification, assessing the biodegradation of
plastic products in specific environments. Currently such standards for testing
and certification do not exist.”
That hasn’t stopped companies from trying. Thai petrochemical
company Indorama
Ventures PCL has licensed Polymateria’s technology and is
planning to use it in fibers it’s designing for mask makers. The company says
it’s in discussions with Group Lemoine and mask makers in India and Malaysia to
supply the new biodegradable material for those manufacturers’ face coverings.
“We’ve looked for a long time for a solution like this that doesn’t leave any
microplastics,” says Prashant Desai, Indorama’s fibers chief innovation
officer. The company says it’s testing the biodegradable masks against the
U.K.’s BSI guidelines for biodegradability, and initial tests of the material
have passed the standard.
The Canadian Shield in Waterloo, which manufactures millions of
units of personal protective equipment weekly and contracts with the Canadian
government to supply face shields, is having trouble keeping up with demand for
its BioMask. The
biodegradable mask incorporates an additive that allows for microbes and
enzymes to “eat away at the treated plastic” once in the landfill. The company
says its certified mask, excluding the ear loops and nosebridge, biodegrades
6.5% in 45 days and was tested under conditions similar to a landfill setting.
The masks from Canadian Shield don’t turn into a digestible wax and aren’t
tested for biodegradability in an open-air situation where masks might be
littered.
While disposable medical masks can cost less than 5¢, the
cheapest biodegradable masks run about 30¢ each and are often much more
expensive. The makers of planet-friendly masks say they need higher demand to
help bring down costs. In Hong Kong, mask retailer ReMatter is
selling more than 1 million medical masks monthly and has introduced a
certified biodegradable mask that will decompose completely after five years in
a landfill. At 55¢ each, they’re priced 80% higher than the company’s other
premium masks, which feature Disney characters or stylish colors aimed at
fashionistas. ReMatter, which sells online and at its specialty shops in Hong
Kong, is marketing the coverings to corporations and schoolkids. “We’d like to
bring down the price a bit more so more people are willing to try it,” says
ReMatter founder Alex Lee. “A big part of that is education. We want to make
people aware of their choice and how it affects the environment. We are doing
talks at schools and teaching children why this is important.”
Critics say pitching masks and other plastics as biodegradable
is an irresponsible marketing tactic that could encourage littering. And even
with additives to make them biodegradable, masks can still produce
microplastics if they simply break down into small pieces but stick around,
says David Newman, managing director of the Bio-based and Biodegradable
Industries Association, a U.K. industry lobbying group.
Those concerns haven’t stopped entrepreneurs worldwide from
trying new ideas, including finding solutions for masks that might end up as
litter. A Dutch company called Marie Bee Bloom sells
rice paper masks with hundreds of flower seeds pressed between the layers. If
they end up in a park or a flower pot, the paper soon disintegrates, allowing
the seeds to sprout. Marie Bee Bloom’s staff of 30 has made about 70,000 masks
this year—by hand—which are sold for about €2.6 ($3) each across Europe.
Although the masks don’t have medical certification, that’s in the works, says
Marianne de Groot-Pons, the graphic artist who started the company. “Nobody
wanted to wear masks, they were being littered on the streets, and I wanted to
change the story and message around masks,” she says. “The masks we have to
wear can turn into something beautiful that’s good for the planet.”
Indian startups have also adopted the idea, putting seeds of
tomatoes, okra, and other vegetables into face coverings made from recycled
cloth—though some critics say there’s a risk of seeding invasive species if the
masks hitch a ride on an airplane. De Groot-Pons insists her seeds aren’t
invasive, just ordinary blooms such as poppies, corn flowers, and petunias.
In Vietnam, ShoeX, a footwear manufacturer-turned-mask maker,
sells what it bills as the world’s first face covering made from coffee. The
mask features woven coffee yarn for its outer layer and a biodegradable filter
made with coffee beans and silver nanotechnology. In Florida, Elo Industries
Inc. sells a disposable mask it says is made from bioplastics including corn
and cassava. And in the U.K., the Pure Option website carries masks made from
corn-based plastic and sustainable paper.
“We need masks to be reusable where possible, but many of us
will still use and prefer disposable ones,” says Yeen Seen Ng, founder of think
tank Centre for Research, Advisory and Technology, which advises Southeast
Asian governments on sustainability plans. “We need biodegradable mask
innovation and technologies to tackle the pollution challenge.”
BOTTOM LINE - An estimated 1.6
billion disposable masks ended up in the world’s seas in 2020. So the face
coverings could join plastic bags and bottles as major global waste threats.
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