COVID and the War on Single-Use Plastic

by Isabel Hookway

As with lots of things, the war on single use plastic took a backseat when covid hit in early 2020. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was essential to fight against the virus. Between February and July 2020, 2.3 billion tonnes of single use PPE was distributed between health and social care services. This is the same amount used in the whole year of 2019. Globally, an estimated 65 billion gloves and 129 billion face masks have been used each month since the start of the pandemic. 

Surgical face masks are commonly manufactured from plastics that break down slowly. These include polyacrylonitrile, polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate. Surgical masks that are made from these materials can take up to 450 years to fully decompose, and even after the decomposition, they may persist as microplastics. 

Not only has there been a vast amount of PPE purchased, but there has also been a vast amount of waste. As a result of the departments 'haphazard purchasing strategy’, according to one report, ¼ of the £12 billion spent on PPE was spent on items that failed to meet NHS standards and have remained unused. This means it will have to be disposed of, without being used. 

Waste management systems were not prepared during the first wave of the pandemic. In Wuhan, clinical waste increased fourfold during its covid-19 outbreak. Mobile incinerators were used to process the waste, which have adverse environmental effects such as increased greenhouse gas emissions. However, these incinerators create less harm to the environment than landfill, if used correctly. The strains on the capacity of waste management highlight the need for more effective strategies. Another challenge with the disposal of PPE was the infection and disease control element. Contaminated PPE could transmit disease. The combined disease aspect and the complex composition of the surgical masks made it particularly hard for them to be disposed of. Surgical masks are made from multiple different polymers and other materials. They must be separated into these different parts and then sterilised to be disposed of. 

Overall, the pandemic has greatly increased the amount of plastic used. From the disposable masks and aprons in healthcare settings, to the increased consumption of single use plastic in day-to-day life, such as take away food providers, the amount of plastic used has dramatically gone up. To reach the NHS’s sustainability targets, urgent action needs to take place. For example, a pre-pandemic effort at Great Ormond Street Hospital encouraged staff to stop using non-surgical gloves where handwashing would do the job. This saved the hospital 21 tonnes of plastic and £90,000 in the ten months the programme ran for. Governments and healthcare systems must work together and create strategies to diminish the effects of the environmental consequences of the covid-19 pandemic.