Add France 24 to your home screen

© 2022 Copyright France 24 - All rights reserved. France 24 is not responsible for the content of external websites. Audience ratings certified by ACPM/OJD.

Issued on: 27/08/2020 - 14:38 Modified: 27/08/2020 - 14:41

Face masks have become a key tool in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic but they are also proving a major new source of pollution, with used masks seen littering streets, countryside and waterways across the world. Now, a French start-up believes it has a solution.

Since mid-July Plaxtil, a firm in Châtellerault, centre-west France, has been recycling thousands of face masks, turning the potentially hazardous waste into useful products.

“We said to ourselves: it's not possible, it's not inevitable that these masks will end up either in nature or incinerated,” Plaxtil co-founder Olivier Civil told AFP.

“We can recycle them, we can do something with this material and we can renew their value.”

Plaxtil was launched in November 2019, and specialises in recycling clothes by turning them into a plastic-like material – also called Plaxtil. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it switched to recycling masks instead.

First, the masks are collected and placed in “quarantine” for four days. They are then ground down into small pieces and subjected to ultraviolet light to ensure they are completely decontaminated before the recycling process begins.

"Concretely, we take fabrics, so clothes – or now, masks – we collect them, we grind them down, mix them with a binding materia,l and we transform them into a material that is called Plaxtil, which can be used in industry and moulded like normal plastic,” said Civil.

Plaxtil says the masks could be turned into a vast array of different objects, but for the moment it is turning them into products that can be used in the fight against Covid, such as plastic visors.

Plaxtil says it has already recycled more than 50,000 masks, producing between 2,000 and 3,000 recycled products since the end of June.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app

France dispatches free Covid-19 face masks to 7 million amid hardship concerns

Face masks now compulsory in Paris tourist hotspots amid second-wave fears

France to boost use of face masks in offices to contain spike in Covid-19 infections

Suspects on trial for Bastille Day truck attack in Nice deny terrorist ties

French court to rule on plan to block porn sites for failure to protect minors

PSG face backlash for mocking eco-friendly travel plea

Trial opens in France over 2016 Nice Bastille Day truck massacre

Will France's record-breaking summer of 2022 boost efforts to fight climate change?

Eight to stand trial over 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice

France to restart all nuclear reactors by winter amid energy crunch

Macron plugs ‘diplomacy of combat’, vows long-term support for Ukraine

How is the city of Paris adapting to climate change?

Vichy France’s ‘biggest stain’? The August 1942 roundup, 80 years on

France prolongs shutdown of nuclear reactors over corrosion amid rising energy prices

Macron warns France of 'the end of abundance' and tough times ahead

The Dieppe Raid: ‘Canada’s single bloodiest day’ of World War II, 80 years on

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.