DCHAS-L Discussion List Archive
From: Jennifer Gile <jen.gile**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] How would you answer this student question?
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 10:22:49 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: CAGi+xFpmuav1s3uQhpaR2qVcQ72=tmeAZp++-s5u8c0CGfF6hA**At_Symbol_Here**mail.gmail.com
In-Reply-To
Hello Mary,
My recommendation is going to echo what a lot of other folks have said here.
We were in person last year. Any time the lab had a potentially volatile compound in use we provided disposable masks for the students to use. They were deployed by their work area, so students would enter the lab with their personal masks, switch at their stations to the disposable mask, and then swap back at the end of lab. Of course we encouraged hand washing with any mask change, and the students have complimented the hand soaps I provide in lab. We opted for the general three ply disposable masks and not the flame resistant ones. Open flames are rarely used in our lab and we felt the risk was acceptable.
We had no instances of in lab transmission of covid, so I feel that this was a good decision. It was also great to have extra masks on hand for when someone forgot theirs, someone dirtied theirs (if you have sneezed into a mask you'll totally understand!), a vendor arrived unmasked, or if folks wanted a fresh one. I kept the rule of if you want one you can have one and it worked out well.
We also purchased a couple of Terracycle mask recycling boxes and encouraged students to break their mask ear strings just in case as well to prevent potential harm to wildlife should the mask end up somewhere outside of the box. We got ours through Fisher, I'm sure other retailers are available. The folks at Fisher shipped our first box with no return address label (and this is really what you are buying) and they were able to send me a return label to affix on. Just something to look out for if you haven't used Terracycle in the past.
Overall the combo worked well and I'm happy with how things went in lab last year.
Jennifer.
Are reusable masks okay in lab or only disposable ones because of chemical contaminants?
Thanks,
Ruth Ann
Ruth Ann Cook Murphy, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry
Chairperson, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Science and Geology
Co-Chairperson, Health Professions Advisory Committee
Amy LeVesconte Professorship of Chemistry
JAMP Faculty Director
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
900 College Street
Belton, TX 76513-2599
Phone 254.295.4542
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