A French company has developed a new way to reuse all those masks we've been using the past two years, converting them into school supplies such as rulers and protractors.
Plaxtil, based in Châtellerault, had already worked with a charity to use donated clothing that wasn't good enough to resell by extracting plastic fibers and turning them into something useful, Plaxtil co-founder Jean-Marc Neveu told public radio program Marketplace.
"When masks came along, we were all ready because disposable masks are practically all plastic fiber. Now, we have transformed 25 million of them," he said.
Plaxtil has placed bins to collect masks at city buildings, schools and businesses, he said.
After a decontamination process, the masks are converted first into a slurry, then molded into the school supplies. Those items are then donated to schools in the area.