Single-use face masks aren’t just to be found scattered across shop car parks and on local greens but also, as new footage reveals, on some of the worlds most beautiful – and delicate – ecosystems. Divers in the Philippines have found scads of used masks on coral reefs close to the country’s capital, Manila. The BBC has the story.
According to an estimate by the Asian Development Bank, the city has been generating an extra 280 tonnes of medical waste per day, since the beginning of the Covid pandemic.
Environmental groups are warning that the plastic inside face masks is breaking down and being consumed by marine wildlife. They’re urging the Philippine government to improve its handling of medical waste, to prevent further pollution of the seas.
Howard Johnson, a BBC News Philippines Correspondent, filmed at the reef to show the extent of the damage being done.
Single-use face masks have been termed the ‘new plastic bags’, and are bound to be the cause of a great amount of damage to ecosystems across the world due to the large quantity being used (with threats of fines for non-wearers). Last August, the Mail reported that “124,000 tons of unrecyclable masks – the equivalent weight of 10,000 London buses – could be dumped each year”, and that, by November, gloves and face masks could be found on almost a third of all British beaches.
Worth watching in full.
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Many people think that when there is some problem in society ‘what can the government do about it?’.
I always think when there is some problem in society ‘what have the government done to create this problem and why don’t they just stop?’.
This pretty much sums up everything for me. Covid will probably disappear of its own accord but we will be living with the consequences of the government action for years. Whether its facemasks, vaccine induced variants. side-effects, unemployment, the end of western liberalism. If the government would just stop doing things we would all be a lot safer and happier
Spot on Steve! If I think of all the governmental safety hoops our clinic has to jump through in terms of hazardous medical waste, yet the public can dispose of their PPE with the household garbage. The mind truly boggles.
When I was at Birmingham University there was a great bar – The Dolphin Lounge I think. I spent a year there – such happy days. I went back a few years later and it was ruined – they tried to make it trendy and they just sucked the life out of it. Barely anyone in there. I found out the the Students Union had made the change because they felt they needed to do something – and they wanted something on their CV ‘undertook a major refurbishment’. If its not broke – don’t fix it!
Was the basement snooker hall still there?
Re: Will Jones post on Dr Bossche letter.
I might have this wrong but having read a more detailed account by Bossche, I didn’t get the impression he was claiming that the mutant virus would escape the human immune system.
Here’s a video interview with Dan Astin-Gregory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3DNV7v5i74
I watched it briefly last night and will probably look at it again later. But my take was :
1/ Virus becomes more infectious due vaccine (vaccine escape) AND lockdown.
2/ Virus finds new hosts. Innate Immune system will be ok but virus could be more virulent
3/ The antibody response in vaccinated individuals takes precedence over the Innate Immune system. If that fails serious illness could develop.
I thought his main points were
1 – vaccinating in a pandemic rather than to prevent a pandemic puts a large amount of selection pressure on the virus to evade the specific spike antibodies created by the vaccine
2 – your specific spike antibodies in a vaccinated individual ‘crowd out’ your innate more generalist antibodies – making a vaccinated individual more susceptible to mutants but not an unvaccinated individual
I thought he was a bit unclear in the video and his letter doesn’t really say much apart from ‘listen to me this is really important’.
I don’t know whether he is right or wrong, an expert or a crank.
You’ve expressed the gist of his comments much better than me – but we’re broadly in agreement.
My (1) supports Your (1)
My (2 & 3) supports your (2). Though I suggest the innate immune system is ‘unimpeded’ in the unvaccinated population which may be an assumption (by me)
yes – I apologise for not reading yours closely enough – I’m not disagreeing – just wanted to put my summary in a quick work break !
I suppose when Chris ‘surge’ Whitty gets back into his coffin every night he doesn’t really think of the harm his glacial unlock is causing. If Ocado keeps delivering new soil from Romania then what does it matter to him? Maybe his ulterior motive is to create an army of virgins