From floating face masks to recycling cutbacks: how the pandemic has hit the war on plastic

Gloves and masks washing up on beaches have become a symbol of the rise of single-use plastics during the coronavirus outbreak

Gloves and protective face masks seen in the Mediterranean in May, held by a volunteer clean-up diver
Gloves and protective face masks seen in the Mediterranean in May, held by a volunteer clean-up diver  Credit: Laurent Lombard/Operation Mer Propre

When Gary Stokes recently spotted a black kite - Hong Kong's most familiar bird of prey - it looked a little different. As he inspected it more closely he realised why: it was carrying a disposable face mask in its beak as it flew over the bay.

"I couldn't believe it," he said.

It wasn't his first experience of finding face masks in unexpected places since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. His organisation, OceansAsia, made headlines globally in February when it revealed it had found 70 masks on a 100 metre stretch of beach on the Soko Islands, just off Hong Kong.

"It's just a matter of time before we start seeing wildlife washing up dead with [masks] in its stomach, or gagged around its beak. Marine debris was already bad enough and this is just another item we are leaving as a legacy for the next generation," he said.

When coronavirus first began to spread around the world, the focus, rightly, was on saving lives and how to change behaviour in order to do so: wearing masks, washing hands and staying indoors. And while there are positives associated with these changes - pollution has fallen off a cliff - now environmentalists fear that there could be more negative implications for the planet too, particularly around single-use plastic.  

Masks are the most obvious symbol of this resurgence in single-use plastic, and the numbers now floating - often quite literally - around the world are huge. France has increased fines for people found discarding the masks in public, and as well as being an environmental problem, poorly disposed of masks and gloves pose an infection risk. 

A study by researchers at the Polytechnic University of Turin estimates Italy alone would need one billion masks and half a billion pairs of gloves every month as the country tries to reboot after lockdown.

"If even only one per cent of the masks [in Italy] were disposed of incorrectly and perhaps dispersed in nature, this would result in 10 million masks per month in the environment," said the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Italy, in a recent report.   

For the vast majority of people who need to wear a mask or face covering on public transport or at the shops, reusable, washable masks are absolutely fine. Medical grade face masks are only needed by health and other frontline workers in close contact with patients, and hospitals have established waste disposal systems for these masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE). 

Face marks being produced in Taiwan 
Face marks being produced in Taiwan  Credit: Bloomberg

Masks make it into the sea when they are dumped on the streets, or sometimes from landfill - particularly in the developing world, where open-air dumps are common - when the wind picks them up.

Their presence adds to the already clogged seas: eight million tonnes of plastic already ends up in the world's oceans every year, causing harm to wildlife, ecosystems and potentially getting into the human food chain in the form of nano and microplastics, although scientists are split on the impact of this.  

The recent global push on recycling is of no use for face masks. They are often made of several kinds of plastic, making them impossible to recycle - and temporary shutdowns in recycling services globally during the pandemic mean that they would have been unable to take them even if they were recyclable.

Dr Carly Fletcher, a researcher in sustainability at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: "It's anecdotal, but there seem to be a lot of gloves and masks in car parks, at the side of streets. It's a communication thing: as well as keeping yourself safe, you also have the responsibility to get the personal protective equipment in the right bins, to get it managed properly."

As well as getting into the sea, there have been reports in the US of fatbergs made up of face masks, gloves and wipes clogging up sewer systems nationwide after they were flushed.

Even if masks make it to incinerators, burning plastics release toxins, particularly in the lower-spec facilities that are common in developing countries.

And some organisations say the issues with masks are just the tip of the iceberg. From takeaways to online deliveries, items that have become central to getting through lockdown in many countries come swaddled in plastic. And the use of single-use plastic has actually increased as a protective measure in many areas: for example, reusable containers in shops have been banned to prevent cross-contamination. 

Experts say they understand the reasoning behind dropping reusable cups - but now they should be brought back as they are as safe as disposables
Experts say they understand the reasoning behind dropping reusable cups - but now they should be brought back as they are as safe as disposables Credit: Alamy

This week, Greenpeace issued a statement with more than 100 scientists from 18 countries saying that plastic was not inherently safer, and washing reusable items - from coffee cups to fabric face masks - would kill the virus.

Dr Jennifer Cole, regional coordinator of the Harvard-led Planetary Health Alliance at the Royal Holloway University of London, said: "It is vitally important that we do not let the impact Covid-19 has had on human health be used as an excuse to further damage the health of our planet."

She said she understands completely why consumers and businesses are using more plastic to protect themselves - but said there was "no science" to back it up.

"These are exceptional circumstances, and so some exceptional behaviour will be appropriate for safety, but we need to make that behaviour as least damaging as possible - for example, don't wear a mask if you don't need to, or use a reusable mask," she said. 

And while masks bobbing up on beaches remains the emblem of the plastic waste crisis that could be caused by Covid-19 - there's a wider issue that experts are just beginning to point to.  

In an article on the Conversation this week, academics Dr Eleni Iacovidou and Dr Norman Ebner argue that the world is facing increased plastic use while, at the same time, plastic recycling has become economically unsustainable.

The reason for this is the fall in oil prices: it has become cheaper to produce new plastic than it has to buy and repurpose recycled plastic, making it uneconomical for recycling facilities to process the waste.

"If we have virgin plastic material being sold cheap, why would you go and pay recyclers for a small amount of plastic material that is of lower quality and expensive?" Dr Iacovidou said, saying regulatory measures were needed - but warning that this kind of support could be hard to come by as cash-strapped governments scramble to recover from the pandemic.  

The UK government has already put back its ban on single-use plastic items from April to October to allow producers more time to source alternative items.

For Mr Stokes, still visiting the litter-strewn beaches around Hong Kong and even watching a couple of masks float by as he spoke to the Telegraph, it's a depressing picture.

"We were getting momentum against plastic then this whole thing has set everything back by years in terms of conservation. Supermarkets are wrapping up every single thing individually, and I totally understand it, but it's frustrating," he said.

"I hope people start to see single-use items like masks in the same way as bottles of bags. I'm hoping we just move to more and more reusable items. That's the message we're trying to get out: we had the initial few weeks of panic and that's fine, but we know it's here to stay now and we need to look at the alternatives."

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