News Leak Centre

No Fear No Favour

Read to know how your COVID preventive equipments triggering the alarmingly high levels of plastic waste in the water bodies

Due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, there’s hardly any sector or any country left unaffected. While on one hand the humankind is stuck inside, the nature is free on parole and is healing itself in every manner but do you really think so that nature, especially the marine life is breathing clear.

Well, if you think so, then you will be shocked to know the reality check of the marine life which is no different from the past times. People worldwide are advised medically to wear masks, gloves, and personal protective equipment (PPE) as precautionary measures to keep themselves safe from contracting the coronavirus but what is worst about it is its aftermath when these used masks and gloves are improperly disposed off. According to the Conservationists and Environmentalists, their disposal is undoubtedly a warning alarm to the wildlife.

The French non-profit Operation Mer Propre, whose activities include regularly picking up litter along the Côte d’Azur, began sounding the alarm late last month.

Divers have found dozens of gloves, masks, and bottles of hand sanitizer beneath the Waves of the Mediterranean, mixed in with the usual litter of disposable cups and aluminum cans in far more than enormous quantities.

Not only is there a potential health risk of disposing off used masks and gloves during the pandemic but many contain materials that cannot be recycled and are non-biodegradable. Surgical masks are made using non-woven fabrics including plastics like polypropylene.

In the years leading up to the COVID-19, knowing the substantially growing figures of these COVID preventive equipments found scattered across seabeds, environmentalists had warned of the threat posed to oceans and marine life by skyrocketing plastic pollution.

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