WHO warns of strain from spike in plastic waste during pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated millions of tonnes of plastic waste, including discarded disposable face masks, gloves and protective medical gear, but the true extent of the problem in Australia is yet to be revealed.

The World Health Organisation said tens of thousands of tonnes of extra medical waste from the response to the pandemic has strained waste systems around the world and is threatening human and environmental health.

An abandoned face mask lies on Liverpool Street in Sydney. Credit: Janie Barrett

From the start of the pandemic to November 2021, about 87,000 tonnes of protective gear – the equivalent of the weight of several hundred blue whales – was ordered worldwide through a United Nations portal. Almost all of this would have ended up as waste.

Similarly, more than 140 billion COVID test kits, with the potential to generate 2600 tonnes of mostly plastic waste, have been shipped worldwide. About 8 billion vaccine doses have been administered globally, enough to produce 144,000 tonnes of waste in the form of glass vials, syringes, needles and safety boxes, the WHO estimates.

In Australia, there is very limited data available on the increased use and disposal of medical waste, prompting Clean Up Australia to launch a nationwide citizen science project on March 6 to measure the extent of Australia’s face mask litter.

The not-for-profit’s events usually draw about 1 million volunteers, and the March project will ask participants to keep a tally of the number of masks they collect in their clean-up.

A seagull stands next to a discarded surgical gown in a trash pit at Recology in California. Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty

Clean Up Australia chair Pip Kiernan said “we know the amount of plastic waste has surged, and we know our habits have changed in a way that hasn’t been kind to the environment.

“Our uptake of single-use items is enormous. It’s not just PPE and masks, we’re also using takeaway packaging and ordering items to our homes.

“The sad thing is, we were making great progress in setting habits that were much better for the environment and then the pandemic swept through.”

The RSPCA has a campaign urging Australians to “snip the straps” on disposable face masks to prevent them from entangling wildlife.

Discarded PPE in Melbourne’s CBD.Credit: Jason South

In 2020, more than 3 billion single-use masks were thrown out worldwide each day, accounting for a significant portion of the pandemic-related litter entering the environment.

Melbourne Zoo’s marine response unit knows of cases in which animals have been caught in face masks, said unit coordinator Mark Keenan.

“We have seen some seals and waterbirds entangled in face masks and some of these entanglements were life-threatening at the point where we intervened,” he said.

“We have monitored some entangled animals that eventually freed themselves, but a few others required our help.”

A report from Infrastructure Australia in 2020 said COVID-19 had caused a spike in the generation of clinical waste because of the increased use of protective gear in medical clinics and other facilities.

However, Infrastructure Australia head of policy and research Peter Colacino said there is a dearth of data on waste.

“In a broad sense, the data gap in the industry is very large,” Mr Colacino said. “We don’t know what we produce here and what waste we import and export.”

The WHO report did not specify where the most egregious waste build-ups had occurred, but referred to challenges such as the limited waste treatment and disposal in rural India, as well as large volumes of faecal sludge from quarantine facilities in Madagascar.

Even before the pandemic, around a third of healthcare facilities were not equipped to handle existing waste loads, the WHO said. That was as high as 60 per cent in poor countries, it said.

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