Hemp: the solution to face mask pollution?

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Europe's 'first compostable face masks'

could reduce a mountain of waste

from single-use protective gear

which could take up to 450 years to decompose

Source: Waste Free Oceans

Courtesy: Laurent Lombard / Operation Mer Propre

129 billion single-use masks are used each month

Source: Environmental Science and Technology Journal

Most are made from plastics

// such as vinyl, polypropylene, and polythene //

This factory says hemp is the solution

Location: Lezinnes, France

No other products are needed to filter air

and the elastic band is recyclable

(SOUNDBITE) (French) FOUNDING PRESIDENT OF GEOCHANVRE, FREDERIC ROURE, SAYING:"We can clearly see that when our masks go into the compost, they are going back to nature, and they will deteriorate quickly. Put the hemp in the ground, 3 months, 6 months later, there is nothing left. It is food for the earthworms. We don't see that with these (surgical) masks, we are left with pieces of the blue plastic."