Right, the masks are worse than useless and a hazard to health. On construction jobs where there are dangerous fumes in confined areas we wear a 3M mask that seals up tight to the face. It has two threaded ports for replaceable filters designed for specific projects and contaminations. The one the welders use has embedded charcoal. It catches just about every known toxin, especially heavy metals like copper vapor and zinc. They test your fit by putting a plastic hood over your head and having you breath while they inject a spray smoke into the hood. If you smell the vapor there's a problem with fit. Try that with those stupid masks. If you can smell a fart the mask is bullshit. I've ripped the 3M filters open and you can literally see the staining of the fine fibers with vapor that has been collected. Before the 3M masks became more common I got sick twice from metal vapor. The nice thing is, they have three one way valves to prevent you from rebreathing your own breath and I change the frequently in dirty areas as soon as they get clogged and resist breathing through them. They have about double the surface area of those face masks everyone is wearing. The ones the painters wear have even more surface area because they have to filter out paint fumes which are much finer. They have folded leaves like a car air filter. Very good stuff. Cost runs about $35.00 for the mask body but I have no idea what the filters cost and shipyards and other industrial jobs are happy to pay for them. Prevention is much cheaper than a person getting poisoned and having a bad reaction from airborne toxins. One guy I worked with was welding over steel that had paint on it and not wearing a mask. He had a reaction to the burning paint fumes and went into convulsions so he had to be run to the hospital. A $35.00 mask would have saved the cost of medical and ambulance as well as the pain of convulsions and being laid up for a couple of days.