Hello Explorers
I hope you are staying safe during this pandemic. Are you wearing your mask? If you are, great! But are you using the resusable or disposable ones?
If you remember during the early stages of the pandemic, Singapore’s general public unleashed their “kiasu”* and “kiasi”** powers at maximum capacity, wiping out shelves of masks, hand sanitisers and groceries (namely toilet paper and instant noodles). This behaviour was condemned by our government ministers and sparked a lot of conversation (and by that I mean internet memes) online. And for the last few months, everyone around the world has been required (or in some, suggested) to wear a basic surgical face mask to reduce transmission of the virus.
But what does the ocean have to say about our new “popular” accessory? Let’s take a look at this article. (As this is a relatively new issue, there has not been a lot of journal papers released yet, so I tried to get my information from more credible sources.)
The news story talks about how residents in the UK using and throwing away millions of masks per day during this pandemic. Conservationists in the area are on red alert when divers started to find masks in the ocean! A French clean-up organisation, Opération Mer Propre noticed an increasing amount of masks and gloves in the surrounding waters.
Is this a new form of pollution? Masks are not made entirely of plastic or textile but instead a combination of both – the fabric is mixed with polypropylene which is a thermoplastic polymer. Being synthetic, it probably will not break down quickly. And learning from Prof Taylor’s lecture on ocean plastics: plastics underwater can take a longer time to break down since the process requires sunlight (UV rays).
There are a lot of articles that talk about how Covid-19 could be worsening the pollution situation for multiple reasons i.e. increased use of single-use, takeaway food containers; single use surgical masks and gloves, to name a few. In general, there has been a lot of wastage during this pandemic since a lot of operations had to cease. Even when the world is on hold, humans are still contributing to pollution. I think this is a tricky situation since safety is still the number one priority which ‘forces’ us to consume more single use products but at the same time, at what cost? We should not forget that the ocean, the land is still susceptible to the aftereffects of our choices.
In my home area, I am thankful and happy to see residents using reusable containers, tiffin food carriers are making a comeback when it comes to buying food from our hawker centers. I urge you all, my dear explorers to have a set of reusables and choose them over disposables. Same with the masks, I see more people using the reusable, washable masks which is a good sign. Hopefully these actions can be replicated globally too.
*- kiasu: afraid to lose out and therefore displaying a “grasping, selfish attitude” (according to Oxford Dictionary)
**-kiasi: afraid of death
References:
B. Henneberry, n.d. How Surgical Masks are Made, retrieved from the Thomas website 11 Jul 2020. https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/other/how-surgical-masks-are made/#:~:text=Surgical%20face%20masks%20are%20made,meter%20(gsm)%20in%20density.
C. Edmund, 11 Jun 2020. How face masks, gloves and other coronavirus waste is polluting our ocean. Retrieved from the World Economic Forum website, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/ppe-masks-gloves-coronavirus-ocean-pollution/