Disposable face masks used during Covid have left chemical timebomb, research suggests | Plastics

The increase in the use of disposable facial masks during the cocvid pandemic has left a chemical time bomb that could harm humans, animals and the environment, suggests research.

Billions of tonnes of plastic masks created to protect people from the propagation of the virus are now breaking down, releasing microplastics and chemical additives, including endocrine disruptors, research revealed.

Consequently, the very equipment whose use was intended to protect people during the pandemic now has a risk to the health of people and the planet, potentially for generations.

“This study highlighted the urgent need to rethink the way we produce, use and have facial masks,” said Anna Bogush of the Center for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at the University of Coventry, the main author of the study.

It was estimated that at the height of the pandemic coronavirus 129 billion disposable masks, mainly made from polypropylene and other plastics, were used every month in the world.

Without recycling stream, most of them found themselves in a landfill or strewn in the streets, parks, beaches, rivers and rural areas, where they have now started to deteriorate. Recent research has reported a significant presence of disposable facial masks in terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Bogush and his co-author, Ivan Kourtchev, have decided to determine how many microplastic particles have been released from facial masks simply seated in the water, without moving at all.

They left newly purchased masks of several different types for 24 hours in bottles containing 150 ml of purified water, then filtered the liquid through a membrane to see what came out.

Each mask examined by Bogush and Kourtchev has designed microplastics, but it is the FFP2 and FFP3 – marketed masks like the standard gold protection against the transmission of the virus – which has raised the most, releasing four to six times more.

“The size of the particles of MP [microplastics] Varied considerably, ranging from around 10 μm to 2,082 μm, but microplastic particles below 100 μm were predominant in water leachate, “they wrote in their article, published in the Environmental Pollution review.

And they made an even more disturbing discovery. The subsequent chemical analysis of leachate has found medical masks also released from bisphenol B, an endocrine disturbing chemical which acts as estrogen when it is absorbed in the bodies of humans and animals.

Given the total quantity of single-use facial masks produced up to the pandemic, the researchers estimated that they led to the release of 128-214 kg of bisphenol B in the environment.

Bogush said: “We cannot ignore the environmental cost of single -use masks, especially when we know that microplastics and chemicals they release can negatively affect people and ecosystems. As we are progressing, it is essential to make these risks aware.