News from Austria – a second life for used FFP2 face masks!

Borealis from Austria – one of the world’s leading providers of polyolefins – has started working together with the Austrian high-tech textiles provider Grabher Group to reduce the waste from the production of protective facemasks.

The basic component of the facemasks produced by Grabher is now being made of entirely recyclable melt-blown polypropylene (PP), which is supplied by Borealis. To increase circularity even further, the textile provider has also started a collect-and-recycle scheme for used facemasks in order to recycle them into products such as oil absorption materials. However, even high-quality and sustainable face masks are quickly thrown away and too many find their way into landfills or even natural environments.