Hilarious (if you're a schadenfreude type). Only one of the many "unintended consequences" of the Safety Cult that will go down in history as one of the greatest mass delusions of all time.
A pandemic side effect: Used masks polluting California coastal waters,
The Washington Post
Dec. 11, 2020
https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/A-pandemic-side-effect-Used-masks-polluting-15794117.phpExcerpt:
TIBURON, Calif. - The pale blue is easy to spot among the dry-brown reeds. [A discarded mask.]
There is the economic crash, the education gap, the depression of solitary life. Now another unwelcome and potentially enduring side effect of the coronavirus pandemic has emerged: the masks, gloves, disinfectant wipes and other items of "personal protective equipment" meant to save lives are also polluting the environment.
Since the pandemic began early this year, masks have become a go-to item of the national wardrobe, especially here along the California coast where mask-wearing rates are high. But many are careless with the new accessory and, in windy places like many along this state's 840-mile coast, the masks and other products are ending up on sidewalks, skittering into storm drains, blowing onto beaches and ending up in the Pacific Ocean and its bays.
And this is before the state's traditional rainy season, which washes urban flotsam and jetsam into the sea. It is due to begin this month.
Many types of masks, including the most common surgical variety, contain plastics that taint ocean ecosystems and disrupt marine food chains. The bottom line is that, in the era of covid-19, another form of mass-produced human stuff is making its way into places where humans do not live.
"Whatever the product may be this is a new, additional plastic threat," said Adam Ratner, associate director of the conservation education program at the Marine Mammal Center based in the Marin headlands, which rescues and heals seals, sea lions, otters and other animals along a 600-mile stretch of California coast.
A study published last summer in the journal Environmental Science & Technology estimated that 129 billion masks and 65 billion plastic-containing gloves are used globally each month, with "a significant portion" ending up in the world's oceans.
Along the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest, the evidence has been literally piling up.
Each year the California Coastal Commission holds a cleanup day, drawing thousands of volunteers from San Diego to Eureka. The normally one-day event this year was held over the entire month of September, and once completed, the commission reported that 70,000 pounds of trash were pulled from parks, creeks, beaches and other public areas.
About 75% of the debris contained plastic, most of it single-use items such as masks, straws, water bottles and takeout containers.
The surprise was that
masks, gloves and other personal protective items ranked 12th out of the 50 categories of recovered trash. In a state where 80% of ocean trash originates on land, the items had never accounted for enough of the debris to require their own category.