Sustainable Face Masks and the Environment

Choosing health can be eco-friendly, and wearing a face mask can keep the environment safe as well as the people around you. By choosing a quality, fabric, reusable face mask that avoids disposables and synthetics, you can help to reduce your environmental impact while making health a priority. 

Reusable Design

Disposable face masks are a double threat to the environment. They create huge amounts of litter which, being made with non-biodegradable materials such as plastics that stays and pollutes our environment. As we all know from the movement against plastic straws, plastic litter breaks down into invisibly tiny but still distinct pieces, which then becomes a threat to the hapless marine life that ingest it.

Reusable face masks protect the environment as well as people’s health. 

Reusable face masks are designed to be worn for long stretches in between washes, without losing their effectiveness. Not to mention, the supply of disposable face masks is needed by healthcare workers who must replace the mask after each use, and reusable face masks will work out to be cheaper in the long run!

Recycled Materials

Among sustainable face masks, some materials and fabrics are more eco-friendly than others. While the bulk of a face mask may be made of a sustainable fabric, it may have layers or filters that are not sustainably made or recyclable.

Some sustainable face masks offer the option of recycled materials. These could include factory off-cut fabrics, recycled cotton, denim or other cloths, and the like. At TECMASK, the Outer Layer of our masks is made using eco-friendly recycled polyester.

Plant-based and Sustainable Materials

One step better than recycled is sustainable and/ or plant-based. One of the most highly efficient ways to combat micro-organisms such as bacteria, fungi and, yes, viruses, is a material called ‘Folma-Shield’. Folma-Shield is a sustainable, bio-based, anti-microbial solution that is derived from coconut oil. This material makes up the foam inside all TECMASK reusable face masks. 

Easy to Clean at Home

The Australian Department of Health says that masks should be washed after every use. This means that reusable face masks are only any good if they are made from the type of material that can be washed at home. That is why TECMASK's reusable face masks are easy to pop in the washing machine