Frankenthal, Germany-headquartered RKW Group has donated a total of around 5,000 surgical masks to medical or nursing facilities located in the vicinity of three of its locations in Germany.
RKW, a global manufacturer of plastic films had a stock of personal protective equipment and was ‘happy to share’, said Harald Biederbick, CEO of RKW.
At the Frankenthal, Petersaurach and Gronau sites, around 1,600 surgical protective masks were distributed to clinics, nursing homes, care services and doctors' and rehabilitation practices each when supplies were particularly difficult to organize at the beginning of April.
The fact that RKW even had so many masks in stock was due to the outbreak of the COVID 19 epidemic in China at the beginning of the year.
"We produce in Guangzhou and were therefore aware of the coming difficulties early on and stocked up on time. We wanted to be prepared to be able to equip our employees worldwide with protective masks at short notice if necessary," said Biederbick.
The company is helping in other ways as well. RKW Wasserburg donated a foil material to the intensive care unit of the Rosenheim hospital, while bus drivers in Grafschaft Bentheim are shielded from passengers by a barrier made of foil from the RKW site in Nordhorn.
And in a joint venture with Renault Trucks, the employees of the French production site in Castelletta (Greater Lyon) are producing – in their free time - disposable protective aprons made from donated RKW film. These aprons are being made available to the clinics in the region.
In addition, RKW is involved in the production of around 750,000 FFP-2 masks for the Ministry of Social Affairs in Baden-Württemberg every month–as a contractor for the FIGHT consortium–and is demonstrating its competence and flexibility here.