10/01/2022
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Face masks, gloves, and wipes are constructed of a variety of plastic fibers, predominantly polypropylene, which will linger in the environment for decades, if not centuries, fragmenting into smaller and smaller microplastics and nanoplastics. According to a research published in Environmental Advances, a single face mask might discharge up to 173,000 microfibers into the seas each day.
Face masks and gloves are blown like tumbleweeds into rivers and streams, where they end up in the seas. Scientists have discovered them on South American beaches, river outflows in Jakarta Bay, in Bangladesh, off the coast of Kenya, and on Hong Kong's uninhabited Soko Islands. Discarded PPE has choked city sewers from New York City to Nairobi, and has fouled machinery in Vancouver, British Columbia's municipal drainage system.
Animals are being harmed by the substance. The inventive common coot, a foot-tall, white-faced bird, has been photographed dragging face masks away to establish nests in the Netherlandsβassuming its huge, gangly feet don't become entangled in the mask loops. According to a research published in Animal Biology, this has happened to swans, seagulls, peregrine falcons, and songbirds, sometimes fatally.
Face masks, gloves, and wipes are not recyclable in most municipal systems and should not be thrown away in a residential recycling container. Masks may include a combination of paper and polymers, such as polypropylene and polyester, which cannot be separated into pure streams of single components for recycling. They are also so little that they become entangled in recycling gear, leading it to malfunction. (In medical institutions, personal protective equipment (PPE) is disposed of as hazardous medical waste.)
Joana Prata, an environmental health researcher at Portugal's University of Porto and main author of a study on pandemic impacts on plastics, stated that residents want clear information on the usage and disposal of personal protective equipment (PPE). She stated, "This involves correct disposal as mixed garbage in tight leak-proof bags."
Photo Credit: Justin Hofman on Unsplash