Face Mask Waste Hits The Road

With the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks went from use in hospitals to everyday staples for just about everyone on earth. While reusable cotton masks have been popular, so has the disposable kind. But what can we do with the 6.8 billion disposable masks used each day? According to a recent RMIT University article, researchers have shown that disposable face masks can be recycled into roads in a circular economy solution. To be more specific, a the team at RMIT University in Australia used shredded single-use masks and processed building rubble, and met civil engineering safety standards.