Nonprofit cleans, disinfects over 1 million masks

PHILADELPHIA - Battelle Memorial Institute’s new health initiative involves cleaning and disinfecting medical masks for reuse and they just hit a milestone.

“Now it’s like a well-oiled machine, things just work, and flow perfectly,” said Vivian Smith, Battelle's Principal Research Scientist. 

One million masks have been received by Battelle’s Critical Care Decontamination System all over the country in less than two months. Tens of thousands of those masks cleaned were from Delaware County.

“I think we’re at about 30,000,” Smith said.

The global science and technology group was granted 415 million federal emergency dollars to conduct free services for hospitals and other medical facilities that have very low PPE. Smith says that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. 

“We just walked them through every step of the process, let them know it’s safe,” said Smith.

Smith has also conducted several similar initiatives around the world.

“A lot of this I do behind the scenes, mostly without recognition for it. You do it because it’s the right thing to do and now with CCDS, they have completely changed,” she said.

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