Reusable masks are better than disposables for the environment. Photo / AP file
Reusable masks are better than disposables for the environment. Photo / AP file
Editorial
EDITORIAL
In the race to find a solution in a crisis, further problems can be created that require solutions themselves.
Masks have proven to be one of the most important protections against the coronavirus.
Production of cheap reusable and washable cloth masks has become a growth industry, while disposable surgicalmasks have become more readily available to the public.
A commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine theorised that mask-wearing might be helping to make the virus less effective and ensuring more infections are asymptomatic. It has been known for a while that the amount of virus someone is exposed to has an impact on the severity of their illness. Masks are a barrier to some virus spread.
But environmentalists are drawing attention to single-use protective gear adding to the world's plastic waste mountain. Most disposable masks are made from long-lasting plastic materials.
RSPCA urges people to cut straps on disposable masks to protect wildlife https://t.co/FzSX32Ht4T
Globally, an estimated 129 billion disposable face masks and 65 billion gloves are used monthly, according to a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Disposable masks are increasingly featuring everywhere as litter.
A discarded face mask in a puddle in central Auckland during alert level 3, Covid-19 restrictions. Photo / Greg Bowker
In the UK, data company Restore shreds disposable masks and the RSPCA animal welfare group has appealed to people to cut the straps off to prevent animals becoming entangled.
People do have other options, with effective cloth versions easy to make at home and instructions on how to do so just a Google search away.
Here, several locally manufactured masks make use of wool. One local effort launched by Massey University staff is designed to be long-lasting rather than disposable.
Reuters also reports hemp or wood fibre biodegradable and compostable face masks are being made or developed around the world.
A French firm, Geochanvre, making Europe's first compostable face masks from hemp, has sold 1.5 million since March.
Masks will be an important part of life at least for the next year, even as vaccines are - hopefully - being rolled out.
Michael Osterholm, the director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said there could be a spike in Covid-19 cases this northern autumn and the US has "another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead".
Almost 86 per cent of doctors in England say they expect a second peak of coronavirus in the next six months, according to a British Medical Association survey.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who has spent years funding infectious disease and immunisation programmes, believes rich countries should be able to "bring this to an end" next year and the rest of the world in 2022.
He told New York Magazine: "You've got seven billion people, each of them needing two doses each — a few of the vaccines might be one dose, but most of these early ones look like two doses. So that's 14 billion doses to administer ... to get the eradication it stretches into 2022. You hope it doesn't stretch past 2022."
Increased use of reusable masks is one way we can avoid adding more problems to the pandemic pile.
