{"id":53836,"date":"2020-06-23T16:20:23","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T21:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53836"},"modified":"2020-06-23T16:20:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T21:20:26","slug":"how-waste-due-to-the-coronavirus-is-hurting-our-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53836","title":{"rendered":"How Waste Due to the Coronavirus Is Hurting Our Oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2020-06-23\/how-waste-due-to-the-coronavirus-is-hurting-our-oceans\/\">How Waste Due to the Coronavirus Is Hurting Our Oceans<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/1076px-Die_Bienenz%C3%BCchter_Bruegel.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In an attempt to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus, millions of people are donning plastic masks, gloves and other types of personal protective equipment. From restaurant staff to medical personnel, workers and the general public are using and discarding thousands of single-use plastic PPE every day. Often, these items end up in parks and parking lots and on front lawns and sidewalks. They\u2019re also making their way into our oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whether the wind blows them into waterways or beachgoers carelessly toss them in the sand, masks, gloves, empty hand sanitizer bottles and other plastics are beginning to appear on the water\u2019s surface, beaches and along the ocean floor. Conservationists have even found hundreds of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timescolonist.com\/news\/local\/ocean-advocate-raises-alarm-as-masks-wash-up-on-beaches-1.24117366\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">masks on the uninhabited Soko Islands<\/a>&nbsp;off the coast of Hong Kong. This new addition to the waste already littering our seas spells even more trouble for marine life and the health of ocean ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Waste Management Dilemmas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On top of public carelessness, the vulnerable state of many waste-management systems is also adding to the dilemma. In the informal economy,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2020\/05\/plastic-pollution-waste-pandemic-covid19-coronavirus-recycling-sustainability\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">waste pickers collect millions of tonnes<\/a>&nbsp;of plastic waste each year. However, since many don\u2019t have job security or health benefits, they\u2019re beginning to succumb to the virus or refraining from work altogether. Subsequently, more plastic PPE is remaining in garbage dumps, increasing the likelihood of them blowing away and ending up in waterways or oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Cynical Opportunism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, the plastic industry isn\u2019t helping the matter, either. Instead of encouraging people to protect themselves with washable masks and other reusable PPE, the industry has insisted that these are unsanitary. Although this statement has no medical evidence to support it, you might have listened to them out of fear for your own safety, opting to buy disposable PPE over making your own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How Waste Due to the Coronavirus Is Hurting Our Oceans In an attempt to protect themselves and others from the coronavirus, millions of people are donning plastic masks, gloves and other types of personal protective equipment. From restaurant staff to medical personnel, workers and the general public are using and discarding thousands of single-use plastic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28817,29929,29930,6665,924],"class_list":["post-53836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-coronavirus","tag-emily-folk","tag-ocean-waste","tag-resilience-org","tag-waste"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53837,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53836\/revisions\/53837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}