Plastic: the recycling of sanitary masks is progressing but remains insufficient
Audio 01:55
Plaxtil has been recycling textiles since 2019, but from June 2020, with the increase in disposable masks and the pollution that this generates, it has started recycling masks in order to use plastic differently © RFI / Sylvie Koffi
By: Claire Fages Follow
5 mins
With the wearing of a mask now compulsory in schools in France, the consumption of disposable polypropylene masks has multiplied at least a hundred since the start of the school year.
The management of this new plastic waste is difficult, even if recycling circuits are being organized.
Publicity
What to do with used disposable sanitary masks?
This waste is becoming more and more invasive, with the widespread use of masks in businesses and schools since the start of the school year.
From 50 million disposable masks consumed per week before summer, we have probably increased to more than 100 times more in a few months.
However, these surgical masks are made of plastic, superimposed layers of nonwoven polypropylene that take nearly 200 years to decompose, almost as much as plastic bags.
Intruders on sorting lines
For now, the government policy is to throw them away with household garbage.
They are then intended to be incinerated, which is already polluting in itself.
But we also find a lot of them in nature.
In cities, they often end up in the sewers and then become a pollution in the settling ponds of water purification plants, when they are not thrown in the wrong bin, and there they end up on sorting lines, a a real headache for recycling companies, whose machines are encumbered by these intruders, with the added risk of contamination.
Initiatives but no organized sector
There is no real recycling channel for these masks.
For the moment, the initiatives are only the fact of start-ups, like Plaxtil.
Based in Châtellerault in the Center-West of France, in Grande Aquitaine, the company decontaminates with UV the masks collected in terminals, at the exit of shops or public services, then transforms them into recycled polypropylene to manufacture objects of protection against Covid, such as door openers, mask clips or school supplies.
Thanks to the support of local communities in the region, another factory was opened in Poitiers at the beginning of November.
But with 200,000 masks recycled in five months, we are very, very far from the needs.
The plastics industry recognizes that it has no concerted action, worried about the lack of sustainability that a recycling sector would have if the massive use of masks stops in six months.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Raw materials
Environment
On the same subject
Raw materials chronicle
Has plastic benefited from the coronavirus crisis?
Africa report
Kenya: when plastic is recycled into everyday objects
Raw materials chronicle
The plastics industry seeks a safe haven in Africa