Masks: Saviour of humans, destroyer of nature?

When the world was 'locked-down,' it turned out to be a blessing for the planet as there was no traffic, no construction work and no emission of harmful pollutants. But a new study now predicts that discarded masks, gloves and face shields will add more than 25,000 tons of plastic waste to the world's oceans.

Researchers from the School of Atmospheric Sciences in China and Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California used a new model to estimate the quantity of pandemic-related plastic waste and where it will all end up.

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The investigators found that, in total, 8 million tons will be produced, with a significant portion of this ocean plastic debris ending up on beaches or the seabed within three to four years. A smaller amount will go into the open ocean, where it will be trapped in the Arctic Ocean.

Most of the global plastic waste entering the ocean is coming from Asia and is hospital waste, the researchers found, using data from the start of the pandemic in 2020 through August 2021.

Amina Schartup, an assistant professor at Scripps Oceanography and co-author of the study said that the biggest sources of excess waste were hospitals in areas already struggling with waste management before the pandemic; they just weren't set up to handle a situation where there is more waste.

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