According to Fast Company, it is estimated that 4.5 trillion masks were used in 2020 and 54.000 tons of PPE waste reaches landfills on a daily basis.

To prevent this and to ensure that the waste doesn't travel further in the oceans and forests, researchers at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) tried to use PPE in reinforcing concrete.

The building material can be used in many ways, but it's not very strong, which is why it needs to be reinforced, which can be done using single-use plastic protection equipment.

As some of the materials used in personal protection equipment can take as much as 25 years to decompose, the team of scientists wanted to make them more useful and they say that the process was a success.

According to them, face masks were able to increase the compressive strength of concrete by as much as 17%, rubber gloves by 22% and gowns by 15%, while at the same time improving bending stress resistance by up to 21% and the elasticity by 12%.

RMIT researchers also experimented with eco-friendly cement in the past, making net-zero concrete that's also highly durable.

Cambridge Engineers and researchers at Nanyang Technical University also presented their version of sustainable construction materials, aiming to reduce carbon emissions in the construction sector.

Shannon Kilmartin-Lynch, research fellow at RMIT and a coauthor of the study, said that "PPE is a fibrous material with remarkable properties of high tensile strength and flexibility. When under stress, the fibrous material of the PPE bridges the micro-cracks formed in concrete to increase its strength."

Shannon stated that the material can be scaled up for operations and the team of researchers currently works with sustainable building company Casafico to implement the new material on field trials.