Parley and Nagami team up to create upcycled plastic face shields for health workers battling COVID-19

Parley collaborators Nagami Design are creating personal protection equipment to help fight COVID-19. The Spanish 3D printing specialists have put their furniture production on hold to focus on supplying healthcare workers – and are now printing around 500 protective face shields a day, or one every five minutes. The latest version of the open source shields are created using Ocean Plastic® donated by Parley, and the company’s robots are operating around the clock to increase supply.

As Parley founder Cyrill Gutsch comments, "the devastating spread of COVID-19 underscores how interconnected we are as a global community, and as a species within the ecosystem. It also brings into the spotlight the necessity of creativity, collaboration and eco-innovation in overcoming the crises we face. Ocean Plastic® was invented to catalyze change in response to marine plastic pollution and the destruction of our oceans. With Nagami’s technology, we are proud to know our materials will be used to face another existential threat and meet the imperative design challenge of protecting those on the front lines — the healthcare heroes racing to end the novel coronavirus.”

Nagami Design began its efforts in Ávila, the city where its factory is located, and has since expanded to other Spanish regions, such as Madrid, Andalucia, the Basque Country, Castilla la Mancha and La Rioja. Inquiries are arriving from various other countries, including the USA, Italy, France, the UAE, India, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and many more.

The shields are produced through robotic extrusion in a layer-by-layer FDM (fused deposition modelling) process. Both the initial batch (produced with recycled PETG) and the new Ocean Plastic® versions are durable, tough, 100% recyclable, and feature robust chemical resistance and high-impact strength.

“This is by far the most important project we’ve ever worked on, but also one we wish we’d never had to start. This is a challenge for all of us, and we’d like to encourage everyone with tools of any kind to reach out and contribute to helping bring safety back into our world”, say Manuel Jimenez García, Miki Jimenez García and Ignacio Viguera Ochoa, the founders of Nagami Design.