COVID-19: The Plastic Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of plastic in our everyday lives, especially in regard to keeping people safe and attempting to return to some semblance of normality. COVID tests, made up mostly of disposable plastic were crucial to capping the spread of the disease.

Testing and PPE

More than 140 million test kits have been shipped worldwide, creating approximately 2,600 tonnes of waste – most of which was plastic. Furthermore, 8 billion vaccine doses created an additional 144,000 tonnes of waste on top of that.

Due to their properties, such as being lightweight, resistant to external shocks, contamination and moisture, plastics are particularly well suited for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Masks and face shields limited transmission of the virus; however, they exacerbated the issue of the huge amount of plastic waste created by the medical sector. Due to the nature of the waste, and the ubiquity of the product, they either end up incinerated with bio-hazardous waste, incinerated in regular waste streams or buried in landfill. Worse of all, fugitive plastics such as litter were heightened - millions of discarded single-use plastics (masks, gloves, aprons, and bottles of sanitizers) have been added to the terrestrial environment and could cause a surge in plastics washing up on coastlines and littering the seabed.

In response to high PPE demand in 2020 among the general public, health care workers, and service workers, single-use face mask production in China soared to 116 million per day in February, about 12 times the usual quantity. The World Health Organization also requested a 40% escalation of disposable PPE production. Most of the 1.5 billion medical items distributed by the UN in the first months of the pandemic ended up as waste, disposable gloves contributing the most. Use of PPE in England increased the country’s carbon emissions by 1% between February and August 2020, according to a WHO report. Again, the greatest contribution came from gloves, with the country using 3 billion items of PPE, resulting in 591 tonnes of waste per day. Gloves were often overused, as many healthcare workers wore them to administer vaccines, despite the he WHO's guidance not requiring it.

Luckily, as the pandemic dragged on many people gravitated towards washable and reusable fabric masks, which offered many of the same benefits whilst offering a potentially more sustainable option - a UK study showed that reusable masks significantly reduced the amount of waste by up to 95%. However, many medical environments still required disposable masks due to their sterile nature, and as mask mandates continued disposable ones were handed to anyone who may have forgotten their personal reusable mask.  

Issues in recycling and reuse

As lockdowns took effect to slow the spread of COVID-19, the global demand for petroleum collapsed. As a result, oil prices plummeted, making the manufacture of virgin (new) plastics from fossil fuels less expensive than recycling. This cost incentive, along with lifestyle changes that increase plastic use, and prioritisation of incineration and landfilling, has complicated the challenge of overcoming plastic pollution. One example of this occurred in Singapore. Packaged take-out meals and home-delivered groceries increased demand for single-use plastics and contributed an additional 1,400 tons of plastic waste during Singapore's first lockdown.

In addition, several states in the U.S. stopped recycling programs, as authorities feared the spread of COVID-19 in recycling centres. This further prioritised both incineration and landfilling. In many countries, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, refill schemes were paused over concerns about the spread of the virus, and several community groups reported an increase in litter.

The waste management problem

The widespread use of personal protective gear created a massive disruption in the supply chain and waste disposal system. The global health crisis put extra pressure on regular waste management practices, leading to inappropriate management strategies, including mobile incineration, direct landfills, and local burnings. Mismanaged plastic waste, consisting of personal protective equipment such as masks and gloves, vastly exceeded the capability of countries to process it properly, researchers have said. Plastic waste from the Covid-19 pandemic has also leaked into the ocean, adding an estimated 8 million tonnes to the 150 million tonnes of plastic waste predicted to already be circulating.

At the regional and national levels, prioritization of human health over environmental health led to the delay or reversal of policies aiming to reduce single-use plastic. In a response to the issue of COVID plastic waste, the WHO is calling for reform and a reduction in the use of plastic packaging for medical devices, as well as proposing future protective gear made from reusable and recyclable materials.

Maria Neira

WHO Director of Environment, Climate Change and Health

“COVID-19 has forced the world to reckon with the gaps and neglected aspects of the waste stream and how we produce, use and discard our healthcare resources, from cradle to grave.”

Conclusion

The plastics waste problem may have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is not the root cause of it. Single-use plastics were already pervasive in our lives and unfortunately also in the environment, when disposed of improperly. There is an urgent need for a shift towards a circular economy for plastics, a goal that will require cooperation between consumers, researchers, governments and industry.