29/07/2020
Discarded masks are being found on uninhabited areas.
During a pandemic we can expect the demand for disposing of waste Personal protective equipment (PPE) will increase, for example, clinical staff on a COVID-19 ward are advised to wear disposable gloves, an apron, a gown, a respirator and face protection and other industries are also being forced to step back on the fight against single-use items as, for example, F&B (food and beverage) that is now forced to use single-use items (like eating utensils) and single dose ingredients’ packs instead of big bottles.
Some areas and industries around the Globe are generating up to six times more waste than normal.
The PPE is intended to help us fight a public health challenge but most already agree that this is a growing environmental hazard.
Gloves, masks and wipes are all plastic. When that's discarded into the environment, it's blown to the ocean or it goes into sewer systems or water bodies.
Gloves, like plastic bags, can appear to be jellyfish or other types of foods for sea turtles, for example, and, as larger plastic debris breaks into smaller pieces, birds, turtles, and fish mistake it for food and gobble it up, which can perforate their stomachs, damage their intestines, or deprive them of nourishment, leading to starvation. Marine mammals and turtles commonly get caught into the discarded fishing gear and other items. And masks and gloves are choking hazards.
Also, it breaks down into microplastics, which still attract pesticides and other harmful chemicals. So when the marine animals eat it, they don't just get the plastic, they get the chemicals too.
And Humans live on land, but they suffer from marine pollution too. The trash we toss away comes back to us. Plastic leaches into our drinking water, too - research found that we consume a spoonful of plastic a week. And the microscopic plastic bits dissolved in the ocean water, interfere with the healthy function of Prochlorococcus - the ocean’s invisible forests that produce 10% of all oxygen we breathe.
But the damage goes far beyond the marine ecosystem. Besides littering PPE in public areas, people are also disposing of these materials in their recycling. That's not where it's supposed to go.
Rubber gloves and masks are not recyclable. But that’s not stopping well-meaning people from throwing their used PPE into recycling bins, forcing workers at some facilities to put themselves at risk of infection.
Thinner plastics aren’t recyclable because it’s too flimsy and too costly to turn into a new product. Only about 9% of plastic gets recycled. So even if they weren’t potentially contaminated with Coronavirus, gloves wouldn’t be recycled.
Masks aren’t recyclable either. No one wants to buy a recycled product made from material that may have been splattered with blood or a deadly virus.
To dispose your PPE, close them in sealed containers and toss them in the general waste container.
Replacing single-use with reusable PPE that is cleaned between uses would reduce the amount of waste. However, the use of chemical cleaning may have other environmental impacts…
So, sadly, this is not an easy issue to solve but we definitely need solutions to be considered.
What are your ideas? How do you think we can keep ourselves and others safe and at the same time avoid harming our Planet?
Share and let us know in the comments.
