TU donates protective equipment

Institutes at TU Darmstadt donated a whole van load of urgently required protective equipment from their stocks including disposable gloves, shoe protectors, protective suits for clean rooms, protective masks of class FFP2 and FFP3, sleeve protectors and protective goggles.

A large proportion of the items will now be used in care facilities in Darmstadt that currently have a huge demand for protective equipment. This campaign was initiated by Maija Laux, an employee in the Functional Materials Group in the Department of Materials and Earth Sciences.

Maija Laux explains how the laboratories in the department have become very quiet due to the measures introduced to combat the spread of the corona pandemic. Protective equipment that is normally used for research purposes was sitting around unused, while at the same time the media was reporting on critical shortages and the emergency situation in the healthcare sector.

“I looked in the cupboards in our department and saw that we still had stock and asked myself whether there was maybe even more unused equipment across the whole university?” The idea for a donation drive was born and immediately received support from Laux’s boss Professor Oliver Gutfleisch and Susanne Schienbein, Senior Specialist for Occupational Safety at TU Darmstadt.

Laux sent out an appeal by email to all professors at TU Darmstadt for the donation of equipment, a move that was welcomed by the management of the university. Employees from 15 specialist groups in the Departments of Materials and Earth Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Physics, Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering, as well as the State Material Testing Lab, responded immediately and brought any protective equipment that was not currently required to the collection point. A fantastic result: “The back and rear seat of the van were full”, says a delighted Maija Laux.