Giving Compass' Take:

• In an article for Grist, Joseph Winters comments on the exorbitant amount of single-use COVID-19 plastics, such as masks or gloves, entering the ocean.

• How can we find safe, innovative means to reuse PPE? What can donors do to spread awareness towards and mitigate the influx of COVID-19 plastics?

• Locate resources to replace COVID-19 plastics with more sustainable equipment.

There’s validity to the claim that single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) is helping keep people safe from coronavirus-carrying airborne droplets. But some environmental advocates worry that increased plastic production will come with its own unintended consequences.

Most obvious is an uptick in plastic pollution. Already the oceans are inundated with a flow of 13 million metric tons of plastic annually, according to a 2018 estimate from the United Nations Environment Program. Considering the vast amounts of PPE products that countries are now calling for in order to protect their citizens, it’s easy to see why people are concerned.

Pretty much all plastic in the oceans is bad news, but PPE pollution presents particularly difficult challenges for marine life. Turtles and other animals often choke on plastic debris, mistaking it for food. “I can’t think of a material better designed to look like a jellyfish than gloves,” Louisiana State University professor Mark Benfield told CNN. And masks with elastic bands can easily cause entanglements with marine animals.

Beyond that, there’s the risk of chemical contamination — as plastic debris slowly breaks apart into tiny fragments known as microplastics, it releases chemicals that may be harmful to the animals that end up eating it. Those animals include humans: Plastic ingested by smaller fish gets incorporated into the bodies of progressively larger animals, all the way up the food chain until it arrives on our dinner plates.

It remains to be seen how the industry will balance that public safety risk with the other risks of plastic, including the flood of PPE plastic entering the oceans. The University College London Waste Innovation Hub calculated that replacing disposable masks with reusable ones would mitigate climate change. This disposable plastic equipment could be swapped for gear that can be cleaned, sterilized, and reused.

Read the full article about COVID-19 plastics by Joseph Winters at Grist.