Crisis sparks new outbreak
Discarded masks, gloves, other PPE littering environment,
The coronavirus has produced another sort of outbreak: a global resurgence in single-use plastic and a torrent of mostly unrecyclable personal protective equipment littering city streets, clogging sewage pipes, even turning up deep below the waves.
“This is only the beginning,” said a spokesperson for Opération Mer Propre (Operation Clean Sea), a French environmental NGO that collected nine surgical face masks and 14 latex gloves during a recent dive to the Mediterranean seabed around the resort town of Antibes.
“If nothing changes, it will become a real ecological disaster if not a sanitary one,” the group said on Facebook where images of the debris were posted last month.
Environmental campaigners have long worried about the impact of single-use plastic on global ecosystems, and lawmakers and businesses had responded with widespread rollbacks on their use, with PPE now added to the list of concerns.
But the hard-won rollbacks were announced before health authorities around the world delayed or dropped sustainability measures, including plastic bag bans, and discouraged consumers from turning to reusable alternatives in a bid to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“These measures have all been announced as temporary, but how long will they stick, fed by anxiety around health concerns?” said Grzegorz Peszko, a lead economist at the World Bank.
“As COVID-19 hits, it seems to be shifting the tide toward single-use plastics.”
Many grocery chains in Canada have suspended fees for plastic bags while introducing additional packaging for loose items, even as research has shown that the virus remains longer on plastic than on most other surfaces.
As well, a growing number of countries advise or require their citizens to wear face coverings in public amid questions about the efficacy, and as many jurisdictions lack the capacity to manage the resulting waste. Most environmental campaigners acknowledge that changes in packaging, recycling and other steps have been necessary to combat the virus but say the pandemic points to the need for more sustainable packaging, and for a greater emphasis on reusable and biodegradable masks and gloves.
There are also fears that some elements of the plastic industry have worked to exploit fears around the pandemic after the industry’s main U.S. lobby group sent a letter in March to Alex Azar, secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, calling single-use plastic products “the most sanitary choice.”
Increases in pandemic-related waste have been difficult to quantify, but Operation Clean Sea founder Laurent Lombard said billions of used masks and gloves represent a new form of pollution as the group calls for increased penalties for discarding debris of any sort in water bodies.
The surge in coronavirus-related plastic packaging may ebb — some retailers in Vancouver have reportedly started to allow reusable bags again, and the Trudeau government says it remains committed to a national ban on some single-use plastic — but it comes after a quadrupling of plastic output since the 1980s.
An estimated eight million tons of plastic trash is washing into oceans each year and, in Canada, according to ocean conservation organization Oceana, more than one-third of plastics are created for singleuse products and packaging, and about 86 per cent of plastic waste ends up in landfill.
Plastic litter generated during the pandemic can take up to 1,000 years to decompose although plastic bags typically take 10 to 20 years, scientists say, ultimately degrading to tiny pieces of microplastic that have become ubiquitous in the environment and which may carry harmful bacteria. Studies on the health effects of microplastics are ongoing.
Carelessly discarded PPE, including sanitizer fluids, face shields, latex gloves and plastic fibre-based surgical masks, can be flushed into gutter storm drains, which in some cases empty directly into bodies of water where they pose a unique threat to wildlife. Gloves can be mistaken as food and masks may present an entanglement risk.
In Toronto, the city continues to see PPE such as masks and gloves littered in public spaces, and asks the public to properly dispose of it in waste bins. Spokesperson Jasmine Patrick said litter hot spots should be reported to 311.
The fine for littering is $500 and there are no plans for an increase, she said.
At home, the city asks residents to dispose of all masks, gloves, wipes, tissues, paper towels and other sanitary/hygiene items in the garbage and to bag all garbage. Diapers can continue to be put in the green bin.
Amid reports of PPE waste damaging sewage infrastructure in other jurisdictions, Toronto says it is not having issues with its sewer pipes or wastewater treatment plants related to the improper disposal of gloves, masks or wipes but notes that only human waste and toilet paper should be flushed down the toilet.
Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution and policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said that while environmental issues have been overtaken by public health concerns amid the pandemic, the food service industry remains concerned about sustainability. He is attempting to gauge whether public attitudes about single-use plastics have permanently changed as a result of the crisis.
“I don’t think so,” he said, though a test will be if consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable packaging alternatives.
Companies and researchers are also working to develop more environmentally friendly materials and PPE, with Armando Carrillo, food innovation technology manager at KFC Canada, saying the brand has been testing a 16-ounce bamboo container for poutine and chicken bowls in Ontario and Quebec restaurants since November 2019.
“Feedback from our restaurants and customers has been incredibly positive and so we will be making bamboo a permanent packaging solution for poutine/chicken bowls by the end of 2020,” he said.
A spokesperson for food and pharmacy giant Loblaw Companies Ltd. did not immediately respond to questions about whether it is moving ahead with a circular shopping system announced last year that would see products from Loblaws President’s Choice and other national brands packaged in reusable containers and delivered to customers’ doors.
On the PPE side, and motivated in part by supply constraints during the pandemic, a research team in South Korea has developed a nano-filter that could extend the life of face masks, even after being washed more than 20 times.
Israeli researchers say they have invented a reusable face mask that can kill the coronavirus, while a team at the University of British Columbia’s BioProducts Institute has designed what could be the world’s first fully compostable and biodegradable medical mask.
The frame of the “Can-Mask” is made entirely from B.C. wood fibres from sources such as pine, spruce, cedar and other softwoods. Prototypes are being tested to ensure they meet health industry specifications for fit and permeability, with a spokesperson saying there are plans to apply for Health Canada certification and move to scaled-up commercial production.
The pandemic could also ultimately spur new thinking about waste management, said the lead author of a report that found a spike in residential waste during the economic lockdown in Ontario, while commercial, industrial and institutional tonnage generally decreased in April and May as enterprises were ordered to close.