Covid-19, Plastic Pollution and Environment

The global pandemic (Covid-19) presented an opportunity to check on the health of the planet. Initially, there had been hoped that the slowdown in the world economy would be beneficial for the planet. As air traffic completely stopped, ships were stuck in port, and industrial pollution was completely reduced. But this pandemic has had negative consequences for the environment too. Waste piling up, disposable protective equipment, plastic packaging everywhere. The world was already going under a sea of plastic waste, but covid-19 has made the situation even worse: a face mask can stay in the environment for up to 500 years. It takes that long before they change into invisible microplastic. As environmentalists say the plastic trash levels rose by 50 percent in April and more of that trash of plastic come from food containers water bottles cups and disposable packages when the pandemic hit. In this pandemic, the number of online purchases rose by 240 percent. The wider impact of this plastic pollution on the environment is now starting to become apparent.

There are piles of garbage everywhere the problem is that plastic is very light so it easily flies up by the wind and settles down rivers where it ends up in the ocean. The plastic waste problem has gotten worse day by day. When the coronavirus outbreak began everything's got bad before this pandemic, we would start using less disposable plastic packaging but now people are purchasing even more plastic wrapped items because they are scared of getting a viral infection. Disposable single-use masks and gloves that people are now using we're seeing start to appear on our streets in our countryside on our beaches which is a real concern. You know you can't help but see plastic pollution everywhere and inevitably that's single-use throw-away plastics. We see lots of plastic bottles, masks, plastic cotton bud sticks, tissue paper and confectionery wrappers in this coronavirus pandemic. This really had an impact on the use of plastic and the types of plastics we are seeing in our environment now. Disposable plastic gloves are common in markets they are light and easily swept away. The pandemic has led to a waste crisis now even environmentally conscious people feel safer buying plastic-wrapped products. Plastic bags floating everywhere the tiny plastic particles which made plastic bag you can only see under a microscope are even more dangerous. This tiny plastic passes through the food chain through fish and ends up in our bodies too. It seems like this pandemic should serve as a reason for us to generate even more plastic waste. If we damage the environment, we also endanger our own health. We are seeing this now during the coronavirus pandemics we're not thinking ahead not conserving the environment and not treating animals like we should. It’s our responsibility to cut back on single-use plastics but these days due to the pandemic the very opposite is happening it takes some 500 years for these materials to decompose so they will be with us for generations. Some people choosing plastic packaging for their food because they think it's safer to use plastic in this pandemic crisis. But there is a danger that this pandemic is making our day-to-day lives less ecologically sustainable. Restaurants with a lot of customer mesh use more disposables now than they used to directly before the pandemic. But there's of course also another part of the story and that is we saw a lot of changes in patterns of behavior and consumption that actually move towards more sustainability. As we start with food in for example in many countries the consumption of regionally and ecologically produced food has increased during the pandemic best for the environment and for the economy too. We saw lots of changes in mobility patterns less business travel less commuting to work more house office some of those probably will be maintained after the pandemic and of course due to lockdowns which is not a positive thing for the economy and the humans but consumption and production went down and therefore also energy use and raw material use and therefore stress on the environment went down. So overall it's more the opposite that we didn't see patterns change in a way that is environmentally more destructive although disposables are probably one point so that's in terms of individual behavior but globally can we say that this pandemic has been good or bad for the environment. So, we have seen lots of plastic go into our oceans we are seeing a much less resilient ocean so animals and wildlife being impacted habitats and ecosystems being impacted and that makes it less resilient and able to withstand the shocks of climate change so it's all interconnected. The biggest concern is that the plastics industry can sort of getting itself off the hook of the action that we have been working so hard to deliver so the action on plastic bottles or on straws the sort of interventions is legislative at a systems-level that can stop plastic pollution from ending up in our ocean in the first place so our oceans are absorbing millions of tons of plastic every year. We really need a whole new approach to how we are packaging things a whole new approach to a single-use culture. We need to be much more of the reuse, reduce and refill mindset and we need to make sure that the plastics industry is fully accountable for the sort of packaging they are producing and stopping it from ending up in the ocean. It is really important during this global pandemic crisis that where people now have to wear masks, they think reusable rather than single-use when it comes down to masks and of course, instead of wearing gloves the advice should be just washing your hands regularly and we need to curb this throwaway mindset that we have within society. Protecting the environment should be the priority but experts worry the pandemic and its economic impact may push environmental pollution issues off the agenda.