By Anna Carreon

As part of the Aboitiz Group’s continuous efforts to help address COVID-19, Pilmico is providing flour sacks to Manila Protective Gear Sewing Club who will upcycle the fabric into protective face masks for medical frontliners.

The club, which was founded by fashion designer Mich Dulce, is composed of volunteers from the fashion industry. According to its Facebook page, they are producing PPE (personal protective equipment) using a medically-reviewed open source suit design to be distributed to various hospitals by the Office of the Vice President.

Fashion designers rallied and volunteered to fabricate personal protective equipment (PPE), and donate these to frontliners in the fight against COVID-19. Recently, social media has been abuzz with tutorials on face mask creation, calls for fabric donations, and requests for logistical assistance to get the PPEs to their intended recipients. To address limited materials and manpower, fashion volunteers turned to upcycling.

According to the Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness journal of Cambridge University, masks made with the flour cotton sacks are best used by ordinary citizens who are their respective households’ runners for errands and supply. Another advantage of making these reusable masks is reducing medical waste, as single-use masks should be immediately discarded after use. While unsuitable for high-risk exposure, these masks will address the shortage so that more N95 and surgical masks will be allotted to those who need it more.

As more data begins to come out about the importance of wearing masks to slow the transmission of COVID-19 between individuals, we saw a good opportunity for Pilmico to work with other stakeholders in this fight against the spread of the virus to upcycle our flour sacks and create face masks that can be used by everyone to keep themselves safer. This should also help to plug the current shortage of PPE's that we are seeing in different parts of the country.

Aside from this partnership, Pilmico also continues to provide medical supplies and make food donations nationwide to various frontliner groups. We want to ensure that, especially, during times like this, we are doing what we can to ensure the advancement of the communities we operate in and the various stakeholders therein.

We have to do what we can to pitch in during times of crisis. One of those things is to increase the access of Filipinos to tools that make people safer.

– Tristan Aboitiz, President and CEO, Food Group Philippines

Upcycling, or the creative use of waste or by-products to produce something that is useful or of value, has helped keep people safe in these trying times. Furthermore, anyone can do it, as upcycling can be done with materials found in one's own home.

Currently, Pilmico is also rolling out a Flour Sacks to Face Masks program, which aims to provide these raw materials for cooperatives, as well as teach them how to produce the face masks.

#OneAboitiz