Look after nature as we ride the pandemic
FEBRUARY 2021 marked one year that our family had been locked away from the rest of the world, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and, further, to other health complications.
Let me be frank: staying at home blows – this is not how we were meant to live life. Being locked away so suddenly felt like slamming into a brick wall at high speed; not a pretty sight.
Being Durbanites at heart, a weekly trip to the beach was ingrained in our culture, an event that we eagerly awaited. We just longed to feel the cool breeze of the Indian Ocean against our faces and the hot sand beneath our feet.
We decided to reignite that forgotten flame and head down to the beach for our first outing this past Saturday. What awaited me this time was different. Different is not the right word. Dystopian – I shudder to use the word although it is most fitting for the description.
New world
What seemed to be a scene from a disaster movie, our family got off the car looking more like we were visiting Chernobyl as opposed to a relaxing day at the sea.
To go down to the beach now with a mask on was most uncomfortable, and to see young kids running around with masks on really pulled at my heartstrings. All these simple pleasures that we once took for granted had changed fundamentally due to the pandemic. I realised that this is the new world.
I looked at the Indian Ocean, which reassuringly looked the same, and exhaled. Turning my head towards land instantly caused my chest to tighten up and the fresh crisp air to rush into my lungs in a gasp of disbelief.
As I walked along the beach, the usual offenders were on parade: plastic packets, bottle caps, earbuds, used plastic bottles and even the right leg of what I thought was once a Barbie doll.
Plastic pollution was thriving – the lockdown did not have a positive effect in this area and now something new littered the beach: disposable masks.
Covid-19’s cost to the environment
The Covid-19 pandemic had affected every part of life on Earth, and the measures taken to control the spread of the virus had a direct and significant effect on the environment. Implemented measures to save lives came at the cost of harming the environment. Am I thinking through this correctly, I asked myself?
I remembered an article I read, one of many which pointed to the decrease in air pollution last year, making the Himalayas visible in parts of India for the first time in 30 years.
Pollution significantly decreased during these months. Did we think this would apply to pollution on the coastline as well?
Recent media reports surfaced showing videos and photos of divers picking up masks and gloves littering the waters around the French Riviera. Where I stood along the beach, the same rot was washing up.
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that if the large increase in medical waste, much of it made from environmentally-harmful single-use plastics, is not managed soundly, uncontrolled dumping could result. The planet cannot handle more man-made disasters.
The potential consequences, says UNEP, which has produced a series of fact sheets on the subject, include public health risks from infected used masks, and the open burning or uncontrolled incineration of masks, leading to the release of toxins in the environment and secondary transmission of diseases to humans.
Greater threat to wildlife
Plastic pollution is already one of the greatest threats we face and now the sudden boom of these daily use products to keep people safe and to prevent the disease is making things worse for the planet.
Wildlife gets tangled in or ingests them. They are not going to biodegrade either, although they will break up into microplastics, introducing more tiny problems into the sea and the food chain. We are now just adding to a glut of plastic waste that already threatens our precious marine life, finding disposable masks floating like jellyfish and waterlogged latex gloves scattered across seabeds.
The animals are not spared when they consume these items, mistaking them for food. The materials fill their stomachs but provide no nutrients, as a result of which they remain malnourished.
Around eight million tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. It is such a huge quantity, it is almost difficult to grasp.
Responsible use
How do we take responsibility for this statistic? Do we remain complacent or are we just desensitised to issues that are outside our microcosm?
How do we reduce this type of pollution caused by disposable masks? We need to choose more wisely, more envirocentric, only supporting products that can be reused, which experts have already deemed to be safe.
The wearing of masks is most likely to continue into the foreseeable future. We should use a mask to protect ourselves and our loved ones, as per the guidelines of the World Health Organization.
Let this come with the responsibility that we remain aware of the environmental consequences and make choices accordingly.
If the climate crisis and the pandemic have shown us anything, it’s that if we look after nature, nature will look after us.