Covid 19 response – How Makerversity members created sustainable PPE

As the Covid-19 global pandemic hit Europe, Makerversity’s pioneering community brought their collective talents together to produce urgently needed PPE for frontline workers.

One of the key challenges of PPE is the fact it is often single use and has a huge impact on the planet. An ICU can get through 30-40 sets of PPE per patient per day, around 9 million units a year, creating vast amounts of waste to be burned or go into landfill. The team focussed their efforts on designing face shields that could be re-used.

Nathaniel Petre and Tim Burrell-Saward led the effort, collaborating with ICU doctor Dr Dominic Pimenta whose charity HEROES funded the project. Together they produced a comfortable and sustainable face shield, made from bio-plastic filament and reclaimed ocean plastic, which could be disinfected multiple times. Nate, Tim and Dominic tell the story in this short video.

Makerversity and HEROES are part of Shield Collaborative, whose members are united in their critical missions to provide NHS and care workers with the vital PPE that they require to do their job safely.