- 193 countries generated 8 million tons of waste during the pandemic.
- According to a new study, 25,900 tons of “pandemic-related plastic waste” seeps into the ocean.
- Its long-term effects are currently unclear.
A report published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated that during the coronavirus pandemic, 193 countries produced 8 million tons of garbage – of which 25,900 tons were “pandemic-related plastic waste.” They infiltrate the world’s oceans and eventually reach beaches and seabeds.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the demand for single-use plastics, which has exacerbated the pressure of the out-of-control global plastic waste problem,” said authors Yiming Peng, Peipei Wu, Amina T. Schartup and Yanxu Zhang in an article titled “The scale and impact of plastic waste associated with the pandemic“Published by PNAS. Researchers come from the School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California,
Researchers estimate that about 87% of waste comes from hospitals-not individuals-and countries cannot handle and effectively dispose of large amounts of plastic waste. “Most of the global emissions come from Asia (72%).” Specifically, plastic comes from rivers; research According to personnel, 10 rivers accounted for 79% of the plastic emissions associated with the pandemic. The top three are the Arabian River, the Indus River and the Yangtze River.
The researchers explained in the abstract: “The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increase in demand for single-use plastics, which has exacerbated the pressure on the already out of control global plastic waste problem.”
The article also stated that plastic facilitates the production of personal protective equipment and packaging because it is “durable and inexpensive.” But the report claims that this kind of plastic endangers marine life and threatens long-term problems in the coastal environment and ecosystems.
The report said: “Although the scale is suspected to be large, the scale and fate of this pandemic-related mismanagement of plastic waste is unclear.”
Another report Approximately 1.56 million masks will enter the ocean in 2020.
