ECOS position paper: Laws and standards should help mainstream reusable masks and personal protective equipment
By Face masks and Personal Protective Equipment play a critical role in the battle against COVID-19 – and have become part of our daily essentials. However, disposable masks and other types of PPE are feeding a growing mountain of waste.
In our new position paper, we offer recommendations to policymakers on how to tackle the negative environmental impacts of widespread disposable PPE and face masks. We provide a list of policy and standardisation must-haves to move towards more sustainable and reusable options.
ECOS recommendations include:
- Reducing the volume of unnecessary single-use PPE, and face masks in particular
- Tackling the composition of face masks
- Reinforcing and ensuring mask conformity
Protective equipment can be reusable… and safe
On a more general level, a change of mentality will be needed, moving away from single-use and stockpiling. Instead, reusable (but safe) options should be promoted.
We call on policymakers to:
- Rethink our dependency on single-use items
- Address the environmental and health impacts of this new pollution stream
- Move away from a mentality of single-use and stockpiling
- Work towards more sustainable, reusable, effective and long-lasting solutions.
Reusable options can ensure safety and steady supply while cutting tonnes of waste and greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time contributing to the EU’s climate policy goals.
This position paper has been developed with the support of our member Health Care Without Harm (HCWH).
Access the paper here.
