More than 25,000 tonnes of personal protective equipment and other types of Covid-related plastic waste has entered Earth’s oceans, a new study estimates – and 71% of this is due to wash up on beaches by the end of the year. MailOnline has more.
Researchers in California have developed a computer model simulating the fate of plastic waste as it leaves beaches, drifts along the water and fragments into pieces.
They estimate that 8.4 million tons of pandemic-related plastic waste has been generated by 193 countries, from the start of the pandemic to August 2021.
Almost three quarters – 71% – is likely to wash up on beaches by the end of the year, the model suggests.
Most of the offending Covid-related plastic is from medical waste generated by hospitals, the researchers say, which “dwarfs” the contribution from PPE and packaging from online shopping giant like Amazon and eBay.
PPE includes masks, face shields disposable gloves and surgical gowns. The term “Covid-related plastic”, meanwhile, includes PPE and any plastic packaging used to contain these items, as well as plastic from test kits.
All can enter rivers and eventually travel into the world’s oceans if not disposed of properly.
The new study was led by a team of researchers at Nanjing University’s School of Atmospheric Sciences and UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who used data from the start of the pandemic in 2020 through to August 2021.
“Plastic waste causes harm to marine life and has become a major global environmental concern,” they say in their paper.
“The recent COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased demand for single-use plastic, intensifying pressure on this already out-of-control problem.
“This work shows that more than eight million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste have been generated globally, with more than 25,000 tons entering the global ocean.
“This poses a long-lasting problem for the ocean environment and is mainly accumulated on beaches and coastal sediments.”
Worth reading in full.
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And of course “proper disposal” means paying to ship it half way round the world for Elbonians to dump in a river while lying to our faces about it.
Please leave Elba out of this
Don’t know our Asia from our Elba?
I don’t think a website called ‘Daily Sceptic’ is the right place for your advert…
Report it as spam.
I thought for a minute they earnt that by picking up all the facemarks littering the streets.
But surely, if it saves just one life…!
That will account for the rise in sea levels then
I think people are missing the point here, you see all those tons of cotton will absorb masses of sea water and prevent the rise in sea levels caused by all you profligate wasters that insist on turning your heating on during the winter – for shame!
That should keep Greta and her acolytes busy, picking it up off the beaches and dragging it out of the various oceanic gyres.
Yeah no. They actually don’t give a fuck about the environment, just the need to consolidate corporate ownership of the Earth and its resources, under the banner of a made up emergency.
More people need to understand this.
It is well to remember that this figure results from a model, so the truth is likely to be significantly different.
I guess it excludes all the containers of masks scattered around Felixstowe.
Does this mean that the oceans are now toxic with Covid viri.
To exactly the same extent as the air around us is.
All joking aside isn’t this one of the most disgusting aspects of this whole charade? As well as poisoning minds and bodies, they have poisoned the environment as well with these pathetic plastic talismans worn by the credulous to appease their oppressors. Fucking diabolical.
Every nap wearer STILL sanctimoniously strutting around with their hideous slave symbols on, are lost. They’re gone. Too lazy or too stupid to see how utterly ridiculous they look, and absolutely clueless as to where their compliance is going to take them..and us. I know this sounds harsh but I’m sick of their beady little stares, and drama passes. I’m through with them.
For the first time in the whole plandemic I had to stop myself losing it with a smug, sanctimonious parent at my daughter’s primary school yesterday who was wearing one to collect his child even though he didn’t have to. Fucking outside. I was going to ask him, why he was wearing that thing on his face, and was he aware that he might be scaring the children with his mock surgical mask, and didn’t he think we should be showing the children normality at this stage. And did he realise how fucking ridiculous he looked with his virtue-signalling stupid rag on his chin, and did he think he was better or more virtuous or safer than anyone else, and did he actually think that a loose fitting bit of disposable plastic tat could stop a virus either leaving or entering him, and if he did would he like me to draw him a diagram of the relative sizes of virons and the pores in breathable fabric, and had he ever seen how they do infection control in hospitals or laboratories.
Thankfully the bell rang and they all came out. Embarrassing scenario averted.
I think we can all relate your comment.
Pity.
Absolutely.
The fucking things turn up everywhere – in streets, in parks, I’ve even seen them thrown in hedges well out in the countryside. It should be frowned on in the same way as not clearing up dog shit now is!
Add it to the list of hypocrisies of the holier than thou, I will tell you how to live your life class.
It’s a long, long list.
Don’t dump them in the sea. Gather your used disposable masks and post them to 10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA
I’d pick up all the filthy things littering my town right now and post them off, but they literally make me feel sick!
Yep. Me too. Disgusting on so many levels.
At least they are not disposal diapers/nappies.
I remember reading, a while ago, about some very smart kid who invented genuinely brilliant way to clean the oceans. It was based on the fact that a lot of ocean waste gathers in certain places, due to currents, winds, etc. and stays there basically whirling forever-so the boy invented some sort of whirling nets, to collect the garbage (in the article it sounded really simple although smart, my description is a bit dumb, sorry about that). Guess what: no agency or government were interested in the invention…
This has been floating around on Social media fora while.
Pun intended.
I am surprised it this low. Taking all the figures with several large pinches of salt – this being the Mail On-line, it appears that in the 18 months since the epidemic began 8.4 mllion tons of plastic waste has been generated but only 25,000 tonnes (why the change of unit?) ended up in the oceans i.e 0.3%. I guess this was because most it is medical waste which tends to be disposed of properly.
It is estimated that between 8 and 14 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the oceans each year i.e.12 and 21 million tonnes over 18 months. So the Covid contribution is between 0.12% and 0.21% of the plastic waste entering the ocean during that period. It is definitely a bad thing – but we should hardly notice it amongst the other plastic waste in the ocean.
Yeah the difference is, all the other plastic waste had a purpose.
Tragic but at the same time vicariously good. It will remind the sheep when in the future they pretend they never believed or went along with any of this (assuming it ever ends or they survive jab XX).
Meanwhile at cock26, the giant migrant monster puppet is in attendance at a session that discusses “gender equality”. Of course our government have found an extra crazy sum of money on the magic tree to throw at women “impacted by climate change”.
It stuns me that the general public don’t see this bullshit for what it is.
I think they largely do, but their own sense of powerlessness prevents them from doing anything about it. If we want to take on this heist, we need to get organised. They are acting globally, so must we. Opposition is far too fragmented; there needs to be a worldwide movement calling out this fraud for what it is.
If these masks were really intended for protection from a deadly disease, you’d think there would be special disposal bins all over the place.
An awful situation. Human hubris abounds.
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God help us all. Not another fecking computer model! We all know there are billions of these useless pieces of filthy clothcrap things clogging up just about fuxxing everything everywhere. No one seems to give a shite. I saw a bird tangled up in one near the M42 the other day on my way home. That bird almost certainly died a slow and agonizing death and there will be plenty more of those. Where are your plastic baggy tree huggers on this? Most of them are double-masked lying down in front of traffic on motorways I fear.