What is Covid 19?
Covid 19, otherwise referred to as Corona Virus, is a novel virus that caused widespread panic around the globe. Four variants were considered to be of the largest concern. These are Identified as the Alpha, Beta, Delta and Omnicron Variants. Each of these had different rates of transmissibility and deadliness.
What Happened?
Covid 19 was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where it spread to the rest of the world. As of January 2020, the World Health Organisation declared Covid 19 as a public health emergency and an international concern. This led to a variety of responses from different countries. These responses depended on the severity of the outbreak within the nation’s sovereign borders.
However, the majority of countries in the western world led enforced lockdowns. These lockdowns restricted people from leaving their houses, other than for essentials and exercise breaks. Lockdown measures in the UK lasted from the 16th of March 2020 to the 8th of March 2021.
However, this wasn’t the end of other precautionary measures.
For Example:
- Only allowed to meet in groups of 6.
- Masks on public transport and the suspension of large events.
It wasn’t till March 2022, whereby we went back to “normality”. Nevertheless, the world is scarred from the experience and has been left with social, economic and environmental ramifications.
Currently, there have been over 756 million confirmed cases and shy of 7 million deaths, as of February 2023. According to the World Health Organisation.
Environmental Impact
Disposable Mask Pollution
The Covid 19 pandemic was estimated to have produced astonishing 7,200 tons of medical waste every day. The vast majority of this was was disposable masks. These disposable masks required people to wear in schools, restaurants, and public transport when they were showing symptoms of illness and for general wear.
Studies have tried to estimate how many masks are being disposed of worldwide and some have come to varying conclusions, one being “129 billion face masks globally every month…..that is 3 million a minute”. That is a significant amount of plastic waste, that is entering our environment every month. The most common fabric used in the creation of the blue disposable masks is a type of fabric made from a “thermoplastic” polymer called polypropylene. However, other materials have also been known to be present in these masks too, such as polystyrene, polycarbonate, polyethene, or polyester.
Polypropylene
Polypropylene is used in 16 % of the entire plastics industry and is involved in the production of many household items, such as plastic bottles and plastic bags. Polypropylene is recyclable material, however, the purpose of the masks was to reduce infection from a disease that many consider deadly and highly contagious. It is very unlikely these masks would have been recycled by many, resulting in a high amount of these masks being disposed of in landfills and our environment, leaking into our waters and our day-to-day environment.
Polypropylene fibres are derived from petroleum and manufactured from the polymerization of propylene. A primary chemical component of polypropylene is phthalates.
Consequences of Phthalates
Phthalates are not considered to be carcinogenic, however, it is an endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). This has the potential to cause health effects on humans and the ecosystem when we are exposed to the substance.
There is evidence to suggest the impact phthalates specifically have on ecosystems, and their impact on sexual reproduction due to the altering of their physiology, as a result of their exposure to this EDC. Some ways phthalates can affect the behaviours of fish is by reducing their fitness and increasing levels of erratic behaviour. This doesn’t seem to be a grave impact.
However, this can cause detrimental defects to fish populations, causing an imbalance in ecosystems and by extension concerns about food supplies. Phthalates have the potential to biomagnify and accumulate as the concentration of this EDC can increase up the food chain. This ultimately results in us ingesting the same EDCs causing health implications for ourselves.
Click here if you want to find out how EDCss such as phthalates have health consequences for us.
Air Pollution Fell
Around the world,d the data on Air pollution is pretty staggering with 90% of people living in cities that exceed World Health Organization (WHO) guideline limits on high levels of pollutants, around the world.
When governments around the world mandate lockdown and tell people to work from home. How much did this affect air pollution? Considering that a significant amount of cars, planes and cruise ships are no longer in use, quite a lot.
Pollution In China
Globally, studies have suggested Covid-19 lockdowns have “reduced the population-weighted concentration of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter levels by about 60% and 31% in 34 countries.” up until the 15th of May.
This was no different in China, as China is the largest polluter in the world a significant drop in air pollution can have global effects on air pollution rates.
Covid-19 lockdowns saw in China, levels of Nitrogen Dioxide dropped as much as 30% from January 2020 -February 2020.
Major cities across the world such as Madrid in Spain and New York City. Madrid saw a drop of 60% and New York’s emissions were reduced by 45%, once lockdown restrictions were in effect.
The video above illustrates the process of how NASA scientists calculate the difference in Air pollution rates, in case you are interested in their end outcomes and the process it took for them to come to. their conclusion.
Conclusion
The covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on everyone around the world; socially, economically and environmentally.
From an environmental lens, the significant global reduction of emissions was one of the few positive outcomes of this pandemic. Exposing the extent to which we as humans can affect our environment through our day-to-day activities. This can give us a glimpse into human potential when we work collaboratively to resolve a common enemy. In this case, it was done through the use of temporary lockdowns and consequently indirectly suspending our use of various means of transport.
On the other hand, the environmental impacts of disposable masks are going to come to fruition more as time passes. The impact of this will be one for the long term rather than immediate. Nevertheless, it has the potential to cause issues within our food supplies and our beautiful marine ecosystems around the world.
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