Abandoned Masks Take '450 Years' to Decompose... Increase in Patent Applications for Environmental Pollution Prevention Technologies

Trend data on 'mask-related technologies for environmental pollution prevention' filed as patents from 2011 to 2020. Provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] There has been a surge in technology development and related patent applications aimed at preventing environmental pollution caused by discarded masks.

According to the Korean Intellectual Property Office and the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on the 9th, since the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the amount of discarded masks has reached one mask per person every 2.3 days, with more than 20 million masks used and disposed of daily.

Additionally, discarded masks are typically placed in volume-based waste bags and disposed of along with general waste, leading to landfill or incineration.

However, since it takes about 450 years for masks buried in landfills to fully decompose, they cause environmental pollution problems.

For the same reason, there has recently been a significant increase in technology development and patent applications aimed at solving the discarded mask problem, which has been identified as a new cause of environmental pollution.

In fact, patent applications related to discarded masks, which averaged only 2.25 cases per year from 2011 to 2018, surged to 13 cases in 2019 and 112 cases in 2020. Inventions considering environmental issues have clearly increased across the entire spectrum of technologies related to mask raw materials, mask structure and function, manufacturing, disposal, and recycling.

From 2011 to 2020, the proportion of applications by technology was divided as follows: ▲ biodegradable materials 14 cases (10%) ▲ reusable masks 104 cases (73%) ▲ discarded mask collection and processing 21 cases (15%) ▲ discarded mask recycling 4 cases (3%).

Among these, the ‘reusable masks’ category, which accounted for the highest proportion, is a field where related technologies have already been commercialized, and patent applications had been steadily filed even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In particular, the Korean Intellectual Property Office has noted the recent trend of eco-friendly new materials and waste resource recovery technologies being applied in the mask field, expecting that the environmental pollution prevention effect will increase further in the future.

From 2011 to 2020, the proportion of applicants was highest for individuals at 71.3%, followed by companies at 27.3%, and universities and research institutes at 1.4%.

The concentration of patent applications for discarded mask environmental pollution prevention technologies among individual applicants is analyzed by the Korean Intellectual Property Office as being due to the fact that as mask use became routine, ideas gained through personal experience tended to lead to patent applications.

Lee Jin-wook, an examiner from the Environmental Technology Examination Team at the Korean Intellectual Property Office, said, “Masks fall under the category of everyday inventions, so individuals can actively submit ideas. The Korean Intellectual Property Office is ensuring that applications for prioritized examination are processed quickly, considering that discarded mask-related technologies are directly related to waste reduction, recycling, and energy conversion technologies.”

The prioritized examination system is a system that allows applications meeting certain conditions to be examined ahead of others upon the applicant’s request.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.