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Waste at its best: Company transforms face masks into phone chargers

Taiwan’s Fubon Financial Holding Co. and Miniwiz are creating phone chargers from recycled face masks in order to achieve the goal of a circular economy. Facemasks, which are being feverishly bought by people as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, are adding an unwelcome element to pollution.

‘During the pandemic, the most throwaway products are single-use masks,’ explained co-founder and CEO of Miniwiz Arthur Huang. In order to encourage recycling, Fubon offices offered places for people to dispose of their unused face masks. During the pandemic, people really needed face masks, so we created recycling spots.

Miniwiz’s innovative technology was used to accomplish this task. Daniel Tsai, chairman of Fubon Financial Holding, said they converted them into colorful phone chargers for employees as an anniversary gift. Considering the importance of sustainability, Tsai said the exercise could have a positive impact on the environment.

‘Every three minutes we can make a charger out of face masks that can reduce waste. Transforming local waste into a valuable product is the ultimate goal’, said Huang. The news follows a warning by the World Health Organization that discarded syringes, old test kits, and vaccine bottles from the COVID-19 pandemic have accumulated to create tens of thousands of tonnes of medical waste that poses a risk to human health and the environment.

‘We found that COVID-19 has increased healthcare waste loads in facilities to up to 10 times,’ Maggie Montgomery, a WHO technical officer, told Geneva-based journalists. Reform and investment should be effected, among other things by reducing the use of packaging that has led to a rush for plastic and by using protective gear made from recyclable or reusable materials.

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