Protecting your health and the environment goes hand-in-hand with this biodegradable face mask from students from UP Diliman.
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In just a couple of years, face masks have gone from things we normally see doctors wear to a near-ubiquitous sight whenever we step out of the house. Nearly anything you do outside the house will require you to wear one. It’s gotten to the point where face masks are practically part of our daily wardrobe. But as common as they are, face masks can also be a pollutant that litters the streets and worse, cause harm to animals if caught in them. Face masks contributing to waste is a problem four students from UP Diliman saw to address. And their solution was? A biodegradable mask, an idea that won them a top prize in an international competition.
BAMBOOST
Recently, science company 3M held its 3M Inspire Challenge 2022, a regional undergraduate case competition. The second edition of the event had students from Australia and New Zealand, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam to come up with their most innovative ideas across three themes: Sustainable Materials, The New Paradigm (A Pandemic Aware World), and Equity (Through Science and Technology).
For the Philippines, the country was represented by Team Fighting Maroons, four students from UP Diliman. For their pitch, Joseph Matthew Paraiso (22), Rachel Vivien Roxas (21), Sophia Bernadette Lunor (22), and Vivienne Viernes (22) focused on Sustainable Material and came up with the Bamboost, a biodegradable and breathable face mask. The mask is actually a reimagining of 3M’s surgical respirators, which makes their production not so resource-intensive. The practical idea bested most of the teams for them to clinch first runner-up, only losing the top spot to a team from India with their idea to reimagine the traditional adhesives used in Post-it Notes by replacing it with adhesives formulated from beeswax.
While Team Philippines did not win, a biodegradable mask is an ingenious idea and one that will have numerous real-world effects right from the get-go. This moment is also another example of Filipino students excelling with ideas that can change the future for the better. The new generation very much has the talent and skills to create ideas worth investing in, all they need now is support. Here’s hoping we may see Bamboost in the future on a more commercial scale.
Continue Reading: This Award-Winning Plant-Based Prosthetic Is Courtesy Of Two Filipino Students
