In this era of well being disaster, justified or not, sporting a masks has turn into obligatory in lots of circumstances, in most nations all over the world.
Most surgical-type masks are mentioned to be “single-use”, and it is strongly recommended that they solely be worn for 3 to 8 hours relying on use, and then discarded; as a result of they are going to have misplaced their filtration capability and might be doubtlessly contaminated by pathogens.
It is on this context that the UFC Que Choisir carried out a test very fascinating.
The UFC is a non-profit affiliation supposed to defend customers via investigations and joint actions of its 150 kids’s associations.
They obtained 3 fashions of basic masks offered in supermarkets and made them undergo 10 washing cycles at 60 ° C. The masks have been then dried within the dryer and then ironed with a comfortable iron.
Then they carried out exams to see in the event that they nonetheless retained their filtration capability. These 3 fashions have been in contrast to masks bearing the “official Afnor / DGA filtration” assure which filter particles bigger than 3 µm by greater than 90%.
What emerged from these exams is that regardless of these repeated washings, the masks retain a filtration capability above the minimal necessities for materials carrying the Afnor / DGA assure. They solely misplaced 0 to 8% of their filtration capability. In addition, the fasteners have remained intact.
In conclusion, there isn’t any draw back to washing them up to 10 occasions at check temperature and reusing them. So that is excellent news for our pockets as a result of there are already washable masks however way more costly.
The UFC Que Choisir doesn’t hesitate to go towards the directives of the well being authorities and affirms: ” Contrary to official instructions, the reuse of surgical masks for non-medical use is therefore possible without compromising their performance, including after going through the washing machine. “.
