“Recycling Technology turns masks and gowns into school chairs”
Project Start would like to present to you some happier COVID-19 news!
A company in Wales has created an innovative way to changing the use of unused face masks and gowns into school chairs.
Did you know….the UK are currently using an estimated 53 million single-use face masks daily and one hospital alone is using 10,000 masks a day. But specialist thermal heating machines which convert used PPE into reusable plastic blocks within one hour have now been installed in 5 NHS hospitals across the UK.
The equipment was developed by Cardiff company Thermal Compaction Group, check them out here: https://www.tcgsolutions.co.uk/.
The equipment allows hospital waste, such as gowns, curtains, and single-use masks to be turned into metre-long blocks on site. The blocks are then collected, processed, and redeveloped into a range of new useful products such as toolboxes and school chairs.
The firm’s Environmental Director, Matt Rapson, said: ‘We are taking what is designated as single-use plastic out of what is a very expensive waste stream for the NHS, reclaiming the plastics and engineering it back into an inert source of polypropylene which is then recycled into multiple products.’
The hospitals which are currently using the machines are, St Woolos in Newport, Wales, Queens Hospital in Burton, Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, Harrogate Hospital and the Royal Cornwall Hospital.
The plastics found in the PPE have become a huge problem during the pandemic and the new PPE machine is a real game-changer in the way hospitals tackle single-use PPE across the UK and hopefully further afield.
Since the pandemic began back in 2020, tens of thousands of tonnes of PPE waste have been created. In March of last year, the World Health Organisation called governments and manufacturers to increase single-use PPE production by 40%. A Facebook survey of 4,500 people carried out by https://www.tradewaste.co.uk/ estimated that 53 million single-use face masks are being used in the UK every day, this is equivalent to around 55,000 tonnes in the 12 months to March 2021.
Only 55 days until the 21st of June, please check out the Project Start roadmap out of lockdown here: https://projectstart.co.uk/the-countdown-to-normality-begins/