Path-breaking idea for used face masks

Masks have become as much a part of daily wear now as socks and kerchiefs, but the disposable ones are also the newest component of urban landfills. Despite many millions defying Covid-19 prevention protocols, we use and throw away an estimated 6.8 billion of those wispy blue face coverings every day, which means approximately 206,470 tonnes. The need to do something about these polluters could not be more pressing. So, the news that discarded surgical masks can be used for road and pavement laying is certainly pathbreaking — or -making. Even though the Australian researchers who have devised this new purpose only envisage using 1% shredded face masks to 99% recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) to make a stronger, water-resistant base, that still means a conscience-soothing utilisation of three million used masks (or 93 tonnes) per kilometre of a two-lane road.

As the same team is also studying whether such masks can be used as an ingredient for concrete, as well as the feasibility of utilising other Covid-19 detritus such as PPEs and plastic syringes in construction material, this bane could eventually become a boon as it would take their burden off landfills. Of course, millennia from now when excavators chance upon a generous layer of surgical masks from the 21st-century strata, these could also become the defining element of our times.