Picture Credit: Dr. Melissa Chang and Dr. Aditi Sharma created Recyclablu in order to turn medical waste into highly effective face masks : LOS ANGELES TIMES
A little over a year ago, as the Covid-19 pandemic first swept the world, healthcare facilities faced a critical shortage in personal protective equipment (PPE). Aditi Sharma, who is finishing a dermatology residency at the University of California (UC) Irvine, vowed to help solve the problem. Along with Dr. Melissa Chang, she began creating face masks out of medical waste that otherwise would have ended up as landfill.
Since then, Chang and Sharma’s masking initiative has recycled over 2,200 pounds of medical waste and repurposed the material into 13,500 reusable face masks for healthcare workers. Furthermore, with the support of the William Ju Foundation, they have been able to form a 501c3, Recyclablu, Inc, in order to scale. The non-profit is currently working with UCLA Health to donate 3,500 face masks to the underserved homeless communities of Skid Row in Los Angeles. In addition, their mask has been selected by the World Health Organization for the 2021 Compendium of Innovative Medical Devices for COVID-19. Next, Recyclablu is looking to partner with other non-profits to help address the Covid crisis situation in India.
RECYCLABLU
“As a result of our PPE initiative, we discovered that healthcare facilities generate up to 7,000 tons of waste daily, and $10 billion annually in disposal costs across the healthcare industry. Furthermore, 85% of this medical waste is considered non-biohazardous,” Sharma says. “Recyclablu, Inc. hopes to promote a culture of sustainability within the medical field while simultaneously providing innovative medical technologies from recycled and repurposed materials.”
It was in the early days of the pandemic that Sharma decided to take action by creating more PPE. She began by reaching out to her university’s School of Engineering. Initially, they were able to 3D print thousands of face shields to distribute to healthcare workers.
But Sharma, who will be pursuing a Mohs surgery fellowship at UC San Francisco after completing her residency this summer, wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to find a sustainable and safe solution. She and her colleague Dr. Melissa Chang found an article from the University of Florida suggesting that the surgical sterilization wrap used to keep surgical instruments sterile is effective at filtering harmful particles. Furthermore, the wraps are made from polypropylene, which is the same material utilized to make N95s and surgical masks. In fact, the process used to manufacture the wrap is similar to that of N95 masks.
Partnering with Professor Greg Rutledge at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sharma and her team tested sterilization wrap and discovered that while not quite as efficient as N95 masks, it was far superior to the four-layered cloth masks some healthcare workers were being forced to rely upon for protection from the novel coronavirus. Sharma thought, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to repurpose this surgical wrap—material that otherwise would be discarded—and turn into something that not only promotes the health of the community, but also protects the environment?”
Next, Sharma and her team collaborated with local seamstresses to design and manufacture masks. They also enlisted engineering students to make a device to cut wire, and medical students to help with the manufacturing process. “Our success has been the result of tremendous collaboration,” Sharma says.
Sharma got her undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from UC San Diego. After university, she went to work at the National Institutes of Health studying immunology and virology. From there, she worked at the World Health Organization on improving access to medical devices in low-income areas, and subsequently worked abroad on public health projects in India and Rwanda. These experiences ignited her desire to pursue public health, innovation, and medicine.
“It is my great hope that this recycling initiative is just the beginning of a bigger movement towards sustainability within the medical field,” says Sharma. “This project has highlighted the necessity of the medical field to start thinking about how we can recycle and repurpose many of the materials that we are using in the hospital. We need to reduce the waste we are producing.”
To aspiring change makers, Sharma says, “Embrace the opportunity to engage in new experiences and meet new people. Be doggedly curious! In the end, the destination is not important, rather it is the journey that molds you into the person you will become and the life you are meant to live.”
Article Credit: forbes