A Burnaby mask company is hoping to continue educating the public on proper mask safety and etiquette as well as their N95 equivalent being picked up by several B.C. organizations.
3S Mask Ltd. on Keith Street is a subsidiary of Stitches Creation Inc., an embroidery company also located in Burnaby. 3S has been making Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) inline with multinational assurance, inspection and product testing company Intertek. In a recent press release, 3S said many people are frustrated and concerned about the lack of information and education regarding mask safety and protection.
Peter Chan, CEO of 3S says it is his company’s responsibility to provide that education.
“People in B.C. are still misinformed about the masks with different levels of protection,” he said. “We hope that the media starts to respond to this frustration by helping educate people. When creating our masks, our goal was to create a safe and comfortable mask, which would make a helpful impact in supporting our BC communities during this difficult time.”
Chan went on to mention the importance of the public knowing that the quality of the masks in the market varies widely, and how the lack of education surrounding PPE supplies can put people’s health and safety at risk.
After the outbreak of the global pandemic, 3S Mask Ltd. distributed a cloth mask that combines the benefits of medical and non-medical masks. The mask has the same level of protectiveness as the medical masks used by healthcare workers. According to the company, theirs is the only mask in the market with a filtration efficiency of more than 95 per cent, equivalent to the medical N95 masks.
Another way to measure a mask’s effectiveness is by the masks Inward leakage (IL) amount. According to a 3M technical bulletin released in February 2021, the IL is the amount of a specific aerosol that enters a respirator facepiece while the wearer breathes normally for three minutes in a test chamber. The test aerosol size is about 0.5 microns, the size of the coronavirus itself is about 0.12 microns across.
Unlike the N95 masks though, 3S’s masks are washable. Thanks to 3D cutting, the masks also come in multiple sizes and the edges can properly seal around the nose and mouth. The design fits both kids as young as two years old all the way up to seniors. Thanks to these features the mask is being used by a number of large organizations in B.C. including Vancouver School Board, the RCMP, UBC and WorkBC.
