If there is one certainty in these pandemic times, it’s that Covid-19 has changed the way we live and a new paradigm has come to stay, for now. When a rare flu outbreak erupted in a local market in Wuhan (China), not even the worst projection could have predicted how that virus might extend worldwide and severely affect human beings without distinction of age, race, or social class. At present, we live with an incessant apprehension not only to get infected, but also to become vectors of coronavirus, spreading it within our relatives and social circle. We changed our lifestyle, leaving out usual social activities to incorporate new ones in an attempt to create a safe environment around us, but certainly isolating ourselves from the rest of the world. We abandoned in our daily life makeup and heels, suits and ties to enable entirely facemasks and visors, sanitizers and gloves, which have become essential safety items in this ‘new normal’. Looking for a more sterilized world to live, we are becoming less mindful of the footprints we leave behind.
Pics of dozens of gloves floating in French waters or vast amounts of facemask stranded on Hong Kong beaches have been spread worldwide. The figures speak for themselves: 65 billion gloves and 129 billion facemasks are produced every month to supply the global demand since the pandemic outbreak in March. If we add to this massive production the lift of bans for the utilization of single-use plastics in some countries due to the coronavirus, the amount of waste generated during these last months is huge. Thus, the plastic industry has found an unexpected opportunity to boost its productivity, far exceeding our current capacity for recycling. Campaigns on responsible disposal of this exceed of plastics or supporting the use of reusable facemask and other alternative safety items arise as an attempt to reduce this impact. But, to be honest, only a small percentage of the waste we are generating enters the recycling process.
Most of the time plastic garbage ends up in the oceans. Conservative estimations say that 19 to 23 million tonnes are entering aquatic ecosystems every year. Another more recent study indicates there are at least 14 million tonnes of plastic sitting on the bottom of the world’s ocean. These wastes can persist in the marine environment for many decades, some of them for centuries, undergoing fragmentation in increasing smaller pieces. Their impacts are dramatic: the biggest fragments causing key habitats to degrade and affecting wildlife by entanglement or ingestion; and microplastics leaching plasticizers and other toxins into the blood and tissues of organisms, which lead to adverse effects on metabolic and endocrine functions. Even more, these microscopic fragments may enter in the chain food affecting other consumers higher up on the chain like us.
Encouragingly, we can find some shed of light within this desolate scenario. Public awareness of recycling these discarded products is on the rise. In the last years, several social movements tackling this issue are getting more and more attention. These initiatives aim to empower people to think critically about the impact of plastic pollution, bringing forward alternatives to our consumerism. Big initiatives also have emerged to address this problem at a wider scale by removing wastes from the rivers or even from the ocean gyres using cutting-edge technologies, or targeting the plastic industry directly to change their practices.
At the end of the coronavirus, we will surely face another resulting pandemic that is much longer, the Plastic Pandemic. All of us as are ultimately responsible for this issue, we must get involved in its solution. From the individual level, changing our consumption habits and looking for alternative products, to a broader and more societal level by shifting to a more circular worldwide economy, as well as, demanding changes in the production patterns of the plastics industry and more sustainable policies of our governments.
It is not too late yet, we can change the outlook for this emerging Plastic Pandemic, but we need to act now…are you willing to turn the tide on plastic?
Daniel Gonzalez-Paredes
#Plastic Free Turtles coalition
James Cook University, Australia.
Karumbe NGO, Uruguay.
