Remember how devastating it was to see videos of people swimming and diving in trash. Conservationists moving through large islands of non-biodegradable waste material floating in several ocean waters have alarmed a lot of people igniting more active movements to help save the environment.
Do you remember this...
Then it was PEP bottles, plastic spoons and toothbrushes, now, sadly, the item that we direly need to help protect us today due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, may well be the part of what will kill us in the future - single-use face masks.
In June of this year, the World Economic Forum ran an article about how these current "lifesavers" are slowly polluting the oceans. Heartbreaking images of used masks, gloves and anti-bacterial bottles are seen underwater and sometimes washed on the beaches make for an alarming proof of environmental damage.
Image c/o Operation Mer Propre
These disturbing images were part of the French clean-up charity Operation Mer Propre whose representative Laurent Lombard comments, "There risks being more masks than jellyfish."
In an early plastic pollution research by Ocean Asia back in February, it was already flagged when they found masses of masks were found in Soko Islands, Hongkong. This adds to the 8 million tons of plastic that enters our ocean each year adding to the already existing 150 million tones circulating in our marine environments.
Just imagine, if these islands of floating plastic come to the Philippines, a country completely surrounded by water because of its archipelagic land formation, all major water channels will be blocked and later on die.
An appeal to everyone - create and recycle personal use masks. Let's not contribute to the dreadful state of our suffering environment.