Plastic Waste due to Pandemic Seeped Into Oceans, Posing Danger

Plastic waste making its way into the oceans is a major environmental concern, which poses threat to the marine ecosystem, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic has made it worse. The pandemic has raised the plastic amount within a short span of time, of which a portion has seeped into the oceans and intensified the pressure on the marine ecosystem.

Single use plastic in various forms such as hand gloves, masks, and doctors’ kits etc. witnessed a huge demand during the pandemic. A recently published work in PNAS (Proceeding of the Natural Academy of Science) reported that more than eight million tons of plastic waste associated with the pandemic have been generated globally and a fraction of it, around 25,000 tons have entered the global oceans. Most of the plastic is from the hospital generated medical waste and outweighs the contribution from personal protection equipment and material used in online shopping packaging, the study says.

The analysis said that 193 countries have produced around 9.2 million tons of plastic waste associated with the pandemic from the beginning till mid of August 2021. The analysis also said that majority of the plastic waste amounting 87.4% was generated by hospitals while a small fraction of about 7.6% was generated by individuals. Packaging and test kits generated about 4.7% and 0.3% plastic waste respectively, the PNAS study reported.

The researchers, belonging to Nanjing University of China and University of California, San Diego, in the United States developed a model in order to predict what fraction of the plastic waste seeped into oceans. They predicted that till August 23, 2021, around 28,000 tons of the plastic debris have made its way into the oceans and these have been transported by 369 major rivers in the world.

The authors o the study warned that within a period as less as three years, the majority of the waste will shift from surface of the oceans to beaches and the sea floor and by this year’s end, more than 70% will be washed onto beaches.

Their model also predicted that in short terms, the waste will mostly impact the environments near the coasts, which are near the original sources, but in the long term, there may be patches developed in the open ocean.

As an example, the authors said that patches of garbage may accumulate in the northeast Pacific Ocean and southeast Indian Ocean. Moreover, the plastic that sweep towards the Arctic will face a dead end which will lead to a swift sinking of much of it into the seabed, the model developed by the authors predicted. The authors also warned that a circumpolar plastic accumulation zone may also form by 2025.

The researchers warned that towards the end of the century, nearly all of the pandemic-associated plastic will end up either in the seabed or the beaches. This means a potential threat to the benthic ecosystem. The benthic ecosystem represents the deepest regions of the ocean.

The findings in the study highlight the hotspot rivers and watersheds that demand special attention in the management of plastic waste. There is an urgent need of developing a better system for collecting, treating and disposing of the medical plastic waste, not only during the pandemic but otherwise as well.