In our previous blog post, we talked about better water bodies – clearer and cleaner ones! This time, we will be talking about the increased aquatic pollution, resulting in contaminated water bodies ☹️
In Lecture 5, it was mentioned that when we look at pollution, we need to look at the environment in totality, including: source, pathway, transformation, sink and damage. With the pandemic, there has been an observable increase in sources of marine pollution in the forms of medical waste which Joffrey Peltier, from a French Non-profit Organization called Operation Mer Propre, describes this as ‘COVID waste’ (Kassam, 2020). He found dozens of disposable masks, latex gloves and bottles of hand sanitizer were found along France’s Côte d’Azur.
As COVID waste bypasses incineration and goes straight into our water bodies, it poses a lasting threat to our marine ecosystems and the environment as a whole; especially since disposable masks – containing polypropylene (PP) plastic – have a lifespan of 450 years (Kassam, 2020).
To make matters worse, the environmental impact of COVID waste does not stop at the coasts.
These surgical face masks are a major source of microplastic pollution since they are mostly made of different polymeric materials (Aragaw, 2020). As mentioned in lecture 3, microplastics can harm marine life when they are mistaken as food and accumulate in the food chain. The plastics in masks will break down into microplastics and then nanoplastics over time. According to Ketchell (2020), one disposable mask can produce millions of nanoplastic particles, which can potentially introduce chemicals and bacteria into the food chain, affecting humans.
Non-aquatic animals can be physically affected too, as seen in Essex whereby a gull was spotted struggling to walk because its legs were trapped in the straps of a disposable face mask for around a week! (Figure 1) (BBC News, 2020).
Figure 1: Gull’s legs stuck in disposable face mask
This thus illustrates the destructive indirect effects of the pandemic on the environment. That said, what exactly can we do to help? Are there individual actions that can be taken to limit the effects? Stay tuned for our post in the next few days to find out!
References
Aragaw, T.A. (2020). Surgical face masks as a potential source for microplastic pollution in the COVID-19 scenario. Marine Pollution Bulletin, [online] 159, p.111517. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381927/ [Accessed 14 Sep. 2020].
BBC News (2020). Coronavirus: Gull caught in PPE face mask in Chelmsford. [online] BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-53474772 [Accessed 14 Sep. 2020].
Kassam, A. (2020). “More masks than jellyfish”: coronavirus waste ends up in ocean. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/08/more-masks-than-jellyfish-coronavirus-waste-ends-up-in-ocean [Accessed 14 Sep. 2020].
Ketchell, M. (2020). Coronavirus face masks: an environmental disaster that might last generation. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-face-masks-an-environmental-disaster-that-might-last-generations-144328 [Accessed 17 Sep. 2020].