Triple R DIY non tissue mask

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  Me and the 3R DIY Non-tissue Mask

I’m an individual with Multiple Sclerosis with some degree of imunodepression and two weeks ago, sited in my kitchen I wondered “How can I go to the hospital to get my medication safely? I’ve no mask, everything went so quickly, that we didn’t manage to the get proper masks to protect ourselves!!” So, I had to relay in an inventive mind and the skills that I had gathered along my live: naval architecture, ocean engineering, risk modelling, air quality, HVAC systems, …. and I started to look for raw material in my kitchen, fortunately I looked at our recycle bin and I had an “Eureka” moment when I discovered a perfectly folded up milk package!! I looked at it and in my mind a simple but efective solution started to mount. I verified that the package manufacturer was our well known “Tetra Pack” and its strict compliance with all the food industry norms for efficacy and safety in protecting the aliments. Above all, I realised that the package was watertight with an easy lock extremity suitable to make a respirator and to mount a proper filter. The only difficulty was how to adjust it to the face covering both nose and mouth and maintain it in position. That part was solved with some trial and error process with relatively few iterations (and a good pair of scissors). For the filter, the choice was obvious to me, a small bit of tissue of a vacum cleaner bag properly cut should fit the purpose. Vacum cleaners are an essential part of the solutions we use to clean the air in our homes, even if most of us doesn’t pay due attention to that fact. There are also safety and quality norms embedded in the design and fabrication of the equipments and their appliances, like the vacum cleaner bags, which in most cases are fabricated with microfiltering specifications. Conjugating a recycled milk package, two small elastics and a bit of a vacum cleaner bag (a new bag properly nested allows to fabricate up to 24 filters) I manage to accomplish the production of a non-tissue mask with a performance similar to a comercial PP2 mask that is:

• easy to make (DIY),
• extra light,
• washable,
• allowing easy replacement of filters,
• inexpensive,
• scalable,
• universal. After that I presented the solution to my friends and former colleagues and I asked them to analise the solution from their expert point of view and the result is here for your judgement. If this simple solution, that is now is being tested for mechanical and usability validation, passing the tests and gaining your attention this mask can easily be produced by millions in no time all over the world because this kind of packages and vacum cleaners are nowadays present everywhere.