Sustainable PPE (facemasks)

The purpose of this RFI is to request information regarding your company, products and services and experience delivering the requirement.

The same information will be gathered from different companies and will be used to give Heathrow further insight on what the market has to offer and will help to refine Heathrow's requirements in that market.

Project Summary

Facemasks have become a part of everyday life in a way that would be simply astonishing 18 months ago.

With so many of Heathrow's front-line colleagues needing to wear face-coverings all-day, every day, for the foreseeable future, we need to ensure that the face masks provided for colleagues...

• Provide the right level of protection
• Are as comfortable as possible
• Are as sustainable as possible

Given that the market for single-use masks has developed significantly over the last 12-15 months we want to take this opportunity to review Heathrow's surgical mask solution to see if there are better options in the market that simply weren't available at the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

Current Situation

Following Department for Transport (DfT) guidelines, Heathrow requires that many front-line roles need to wear surgical masks.

In the pursuit of comfort, Heathrow currently offers colleagues a variety of mask options...

• Type IIR single-use surgical masks
• Reusable ear-loop masks that have been modified with longer ear loops for comfort
• Reusable back-of-head masks featuring a crosshatch design for colleagues who have difficulty wearing the ear-loop design / find it uncomfortable

Heathrow have found that reusable masks are an expensive solution, with many colleagues forgetting / or losing reusable masks. By so regularly needing to replace reusable masks, the cost / environmental impact savings that were offered are negated.

Front-line roles at Heathrow will continue to require facemasks for the foreseeable future.

Due to DfT guidelines the reusable cloth masks currently used by colleagues are suitable for some roles, but not suitable for others.

With this in mind Heathrow would like to explore whether there could be a benefit in consolidating our mask orders into a universal, single-use solution for all Heathrow colleagues.

Where do we want to be?

We want Heathrow to be an industry leader in the deployment of sustainable single-use surgical masks.

Heathrow is going to require these masks for the foreseeable future, so we want to work with industry to ensure that we minimise the environmental impact of facemasks without compromising on the protection or comfort offered to colleagues.