“Plastic waste related to Covid-19 is only part of the larger problem of plastic waste,” says Yanxu Zhang from the Chinese University of Nanjing. To solve it, technical innovations, a change in the economy and changes in lifestyles are required, according to the researcher.
In the short term, proposals of this magnitude are not expected to improve the situation. As a research team with Zhang now reports in the specialist magazine “PNAS”, mankind has increased the amount of plastic waste generated again in a short time.
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Health care, personal protection and online shopping
Single-use plastics that make up masks and gloves protect people from infections with the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus. Then they are thrown away, for hygienic reasons they are not suitable for reuse. The research team has examined where most of the corona plastic comes from and where it is likely to end up in the long run.
According to calculations, between four and 15 million tons of additional plastic waste has been generated worldwide since the pandemic began in early 2020. For comparison: According to the United Nations Environment Program, mankind produces a total of around 300 million tons of plastic waste per year. Assuming the mean value of about eight million tons of pandemic plastic waste, about 26,000 tons of it were washed from rivers into the world’s oceans, the team says.
The main source of garbage is not private individuals throwing away items. “When we started the calculations, we were surprised that the amount of waste from medical facilities was much larger than that from individuals,” said co-author Amina Schartup in a statement from the University of California in San Diego.
Based on the numbers of Covid 19 hospital patients and the average amount of waste per person treated, the team determined that almost 90 percent of pandemic plastic waste comes from hospitals. The largest sources were in areas that had struggled with waste disposal before the pandemic. “They just weren’t prepared to deal with a situation where there was more waste,” says Schartup.
Therefore, the amount of waste is not greatest where most patients have been treated, but where there is a lack of waste management. Almost half come from Asian countries such as India and China, and almost a quarter each from Europe and the American continents. The contribution made by individuals is also comparatively high in Asia, which the research team attributes to the large number of mask wearers. The protective equipment of private individuals makes up a total of almost eight percent of the additional amount of waste.
In addition to the anti-infection items, the increased online shopping in the pandemic resulted in more packaging materials than garbage, around five percent of the total amount of additional plastic waste. A large part of this is also in Asia, report the scientists.
Accumulation in the north polar region
Of the approximately 26,000 tons of plastic waste that has been washed into the seas to date, probably three quarters come from Asian rivers such as the Shatt al-Arab, the Indus and the Yangtze, which flow into the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the East China Sea. European rivers account for a good tenth of the discharges. The researchers suspect that most of the plastic will settle on beaches and on the ocean floor. A smaller part will take a different route.
“We know that some waste that ends up in the North Pacific from Asian rivers ends up in the Arctic Ocean,” says Schartup. Due to the ocean circulation pattern, it is a kind of dead end for flotsam. “All sorts of things that are released from the continents accumulate there,” says Schartup. The modeling shows that around 80 percent of the plastic waste that gets there sinks quickly.
The research team suspects that plastic waste will accumulate around the polar region by 2025. The potential environmental impact of the accumulated plastics is cause for concern, say the researchers. They are pushing for better medical waste management, especially in developing countries. They also call for greater public awareness of the environmental impact of personal protective equipment and other plastic products. (with dpa)
