With the Covid-19 pandemic hitting hard all around the world, roughly 129 billion facemasks are disposed of each month. With each weighing roughly 3.5g, this equates to 451,500 tonnes of masks being disposed of each month, and would be enough to cover an area roughly 3 times the size of Singapore!
Although these masks are made from reusable plastics, due to fact that they become contaminated with saliva and germs when they are worn, this makes them impossible to recycle. So like much of the rest of the plastic waste that we produce, it is left for nature to decompose, which can take hundreds if not thousands of years. All to often however, this mask waste is not disposed of properly and doesn't even make it to our landfills. During recent times we have seen a massive influx of these masks washing up on our beaches, which obviously means there are many more of these in our oceans and seas. Similar to plastic bags, sea turtles and porpoises will eat masks thinking they are a food source. This blocks their internal systems, leaving them to slowly starve in the process.
|
|
|
Now you may be wondering, how has Hong Kong faired in this new wave of disposable masks. In a recent survey from Greener Actions which surveyed 1,095 people, it reported that 92% of the respondents used disposable masks over reusable one. This then equates to an enormous amount of waste. The SCMP noted in a recent news article that Hong Kong citizens have used and subsequently disposed of almost 2 billion disposable masks since February 2020.
It is our job as citizens to begin making the necessary steps to move towards sustainable mask usage, by using reusable masks, rather than disposable ones. We as the Island School community would like to lead the way and as such are launching this reusable mask initiative. We really hope that you will get behind us and support this initiative for the sake of our planet.
|