Mumbai, India – India was one of those countries globally that have been greatly affected by the pandemic, especially during 2021 when the country had a shortage of hospital spaces to deal with the rising number of COVID-19 cases. Reflecting on these events that shocked the nation, eco-friendly solutions company Eco Eclectic Technologies (EETech) has worked with creative agency Cheil Worldwide India in creating hospital beds out of waste face masks and PPEs.
In a film shown by the company, it stressed that thousands of people have passed away when they could not receive treatment due to the lack of available beds. In parallel, 100 million masks every month are being thrown into landfills. This non-biodegradable waste is littering our streets, landfills and even on our oceans.
The process features in a campaign, called ‘The Novel Bed Project’, showing a hospital bed being lovingly created from scratch, using discarded PPE kits, more than a thousand used masks, coffee waste, eco-friendly laminated paper and scrap materials.
“Exactly one year after the brutal second wave sent ripples through the country, the first bed made has been endorsed by doctors and donated to a hospital in Delhi, serving as a tribute to all the loved ones we had lost during the difficult period,” the agency said in a press statement.
Dr. Binish Desai, founder at Eco Eclectic Technologies, said, “I saw the amount of waste being generated by single use masks and I started experimenting. I don’t see waste as a waste, I see it as a resource. As humans we have created it, so it is our responsibility to get rid of it and so I started this particular project. Coming up with innovation from pandemic-related waste is very important.”
Meanwhile, Emmanuel Upputuru, CCO at Cheil India said, “We needed a novel way to address Covid waste in a way that would benefit society. With the dire shortage of hospital beds in India, we knew of no better way to repurpose the waste than to create much needed hospital beds. Something only possible by collaborating with Dr Desai’s EETech, the world leaders in breakthrough recycling technologies. The first bed produced was presented to a hospital in Delhi as a tribute to the ones we lost.”
The one-minute film, made by production house Epitome, breaks on 27 April in India across digital platforms and aims to educate people about the amount of pandemic waste generated by discarded face masks, how to dispose of it in a way that benefits communities and how it can be used to overcome hospital bed shortages.
