Executive Summary:

This page explains why we created and sent out free ear savers. We are not claiming these are certified for use and for legal reasons have to suggest that these be considered single use unless you feel comfortable using them longer (I have been using our 1st prototype daily for more than a month).
How our software can help your company bottom line while helping with communication, social distancing and keeping your customers and staff as safe as possible
What's so special about these (spoiler alert: They are made with plant material not petro-chemicals so they are bio-degradable and recyclable, but also UV resistant.)
How you can get more Ear savers (spoiler alert: Free plans for your 3D printer, but now, we have also added an option where we can produce them for you.) # TL;DR version

Hi! We were tired of our ears being uncomfortable from elastics on face masks and we were listening to some professionals wearing masks who complained that after a few minutes, and especially after hours of wearing elastic masks, their ears hurt from the elastics.

We decided that this is where we could make another small, but practical difference. We started manufactuaring them in June and finished all we needed for our customers in early hours of August 2020.

COVID-19 is with us for a while, round 1 may be over (July 2020) - or not, but we believe we are going to go through waves of it until a vaccine is widely available. Health ministers (August 2020) are finally realizing (or finally 'publically' admitting) that even with a vaccine, COVID-19 rules are going to be needed for several YEARS to come.

With 'home sewn' masks, we saw that people were solving the problem in several ways by changing the design. But that doesn't help for the disposable ones that are widely in use by technicians, hospitals, wood and other machine workers.

So we looked at designs that were available. They weren't as good as we thought we could do so after several tests we think we came up with a couple good designs. We then shipped the one we thought was best for people having to wear them all day long, out at no cost to our customers, one for every Maintenance Connection Everywhere WO technician license, because these are the people that use our software that most need to have a mask on for long periods of time, whether they are working in hospitals, or airports, or submarines, or jails or fixing problems onsite for their customers.

The main products we produce and sell around the world are our software, software that helps keep people in communication even when they aren't in the same room, software that helps keep machinery up and running with the Maintenance Connection family of EAM/CMMS software, software that helps you keep track of whether you are following your own cleaning guidelines with our 'Cleaning Solutions' including Key Performance Indicator (KPI) displays.

We created this page for those that received these ear savers. But then, we have already had people ask if we can provide more, so we decided: Sure! Go here to make your own, and now you can also order more

What makes these special:

First, the one we sent you and most of the ones we produce (we tell you otherwise) we use a plant based biodegradable plastic called PLA (Poly-Lactic Acid). I wouldn't recommend eating them; let me be clear: DO NOT eat, lick or suck them, but I'd be willing to bet they are safer than ingesting cleaning solutions. If you are reading this much after Mid 2020, please forgive the outdated political humor.
It is a thermoplastic (means it can be shaped when heated) extruded from the starch of plants, such as sugar beets, maize (corn), cassava, sugarcane or cereals. Being derived from biological products, this type of plastic is biodegradable under the right conditions (such as an active compost heap, with enough oxygen and humidity) and therefore preferred for environmental impact over thermoplastics derived from fossil fuels.
They are UV resistant. I'm told 10 to 15 years. We haven't tested that long yet - come back in a decade, and I'm sure it depends on how thick the ozone layer is where you live. But the point is, compared to many plastics, this plastic is known for being UV resistant.
You can clean them with so called 'hot' water (50C or below, the temperature your 'hot' water should be, if you have your hot water really hot, don't leave them long, they will distort, over 50C and definitely over 65C.) Cleaning them in water does not mean that they are sterilized. See the discussion on sterilization.
They are also safe to get wet. While they are biodegradable, they need the conditions, which includes heat, of a compost to decompose. We tested with them sitting in water for days with no discoloration or noticeable degredation.
They are recyclable. #7 but you are better of composting them.
They are orange! The color of the Maintenance Connection Canada checkmark maple leaf and the color of the Maintenance Connection Inc. checkmark cube.

Downsides of this choice of plastic:

Somewhere between 55C (131F) and 65C (149F) they will distort, melt. Don't leave them on the dashboard of your car in the sun for example. We didn't send any of these to our staff or customers in India, Costa Rica or the Philippines or other tropical climate locations. If you are in one of those, sorry, we had to send you the high heat version - because your ambient temperature gets hot enough to distort, and there will be just too many places, such as sitting in the sun, where it is even hotter than ambient where it would definitely melt.
While they are recyclable, #7, most jurisdictions throw #7 into the junk pile. So make sure they are recyclable in your area before tossing them.
They are more brittle than some plastics. This means if you bend them over against themselves, they will 'permanently'' bend or snap, and they will have 'those' white stretch marks. On them.
While they are biodegradable, just like a carrot won't biodegrade in a landfill, they don't biodegrade in a landfill; not enough water or heat. And to answer a wisecrack friend: No it isn't the color of the carrot and the ear saver, lots of 'food' won't break down in a landfill regardless of color.
this is VERY different from the normal petro-plastics like plastic bags that break down by UV into 'tiny unseen particles of plastic' that are still plastic and, for example, choke the life out of corals starving them to death when they eat millions of really tiny 'broken down so humans don't have to see the mess' petro-chemical plastics; the corals fill up their gut with all this 'UV broken down plastic' and then die because the have no room for real food - and even worse, one report says they prefer the taste of this broken down plastic. Our ear savers are made of organic plastic that will really compost down and provide real nutrient for the next bio-cycle.