COVID-19 is a worldwide health crisis that has presented us with innumerable challenges, from physical and mental to financial and even environmental. Generally speaking, international lockdown have done wonders for air pollution levels. Unfortunately, there’s also a major downside: disposable face masks and gloves are littering our oceans and harming our marine life.
- These single-use items have already been littering the streets. I don’t know about you, but it’s shocking the amount of gloves and masks I’m seeing just thrown on the ground as litter, even when there are trash cans nearby! Because these items are single-use, people are just going into stores with them and then taking them off and throwing them on the ground. What the hell?
- Unsurprisingly, the face masks and gloves are making it to the oceans now. This is happening because many of these items are being thrown into gutters which then eventually wash into waterways. Proof of just how bad things are getting in this regard was posted to Facebook by French nonprofit Opération Mer Propre, which found so many of these items in the waters in the Côte d’Azur. However, the problem as been recognized as far away as Asia.
- This could become a serious problem. While scientists were hopeful that we might make real headway in preserving our marine life and reversing the damage by 2050, it looks like that may not happen. “Operation COVID 19 this morning… this is it the first disposable masks arrived in the Mediterranean…!” they wrote in a post accompanying photos of the litter. “Unfortunately, it was expected to see the number of masks and gloves thrown directly into the gutters… more than ever we will have to take action against all these incivilities, from the can to the mask because whoever throws his can will also throw his mask…! It’s just the beginning and if nothing changes it will become a real ecological disaster and maybe even health…!”
- These face masks and gloves are terrible for the environment. The material that they’re made of mean that they have a life span of 450 years, making them “veritable ecological timebombs,” according to Treehugger. This is seriously concerning, especially since it’s unlikely that we’ll stop wearing protective equipment like this anytime soon. We must do more to protect our world. We only have one and once it’s destroyed, then what?
