Increased personal protective equipment litter as a result of COVID-19 measures
Increased personal protective equipment litter as a result of COVID-19 measures
Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce virus transmission. Here, we quantitatively analyse emergence of PPE and COVID-19-related litter over 14 months for 11 countries using the litter collection application Litterati. The proportion of masks in litter increased by >80-fold as a result of COVID-19 legislation, from <0.01% to >0.8%. Gloves and wipes, more prevalent at ~0.2% of litter before the pandemic, doubled to 0.4%, but this has since fallen. Glove litter increased in the initial stages of the pandemic but fell after the introduction of facemask policies, whereupon there was an increase of facemask litter. National COVID-19 policy responses and international World Health Organization announcements and recommendations are a probable driver of PPE litter dynamics, especially the implementation of facemask policies. Waste management should be incorporated in designing future pandemic policies to avoid negative environmental legacies of mismanaged PPE.
272–279
Roberts, Keiron P.
da377993-082e-4693-8814-8983ab028258
Phang, Sui C.
bdcf3096-797a-4d08-a4d9-baa008fe2e45
Williams, John B.
9ac1d25b-3e5b-4a3a-ae71-d6a6fc94bf0c
Hutchinson, David J.
49f10728-1898-4fcc-88d2-c0cf9f2b95dd
Kolstoe, Simon E.
294db8a5-4d50-411d-b3fe-45b7908dd55c
de Bie, Jasper
b0520a90-7cba-4885-8518-3ee0857a44e7
Williams, Ian D.
c9d674ac-ee69-4937-ab43-17e716266e22
Stringfellow, Anne M.
024efba8-7ffc-441e-a268-be43240990a9
March 2022
Roberts, Keiron P.
da377993-082e-4693-8814-8983ab028258
Phang, Sui C.
bdcf3096-797a-4d08-a4d9-baa008fe2e45
Williams, John B.
9ac1d25b-3e5b-4a3a-ae71-d6a6fc94bf0c
Hutchinson, David J.
49f10728-1898-4fcc-88d2-c0cf9f2b95dd
Kolstoe, Simon E.
294db8a5-4d50-411d-b3fe-45b7908dd55c
de Bie, Jasper
b0520a90-7cba-4885-8518-3ee0857a44e7
Williams, Ian D.
c9d674ac-ee69-4937-ab43-17e716266e22
Stringfellow, Anne M.
024efba8-7ffc-441e-a268-be43240990a9
Roberts, Keiron P., Phang, Sui C., Williams, John B., Hutchinson, David J., Kolstoe, Simon E., de Bie, Jasper, Williams, Ian D. and Stringfellow, Anne M.
(2022)
Increased personal protective equipment litter as a result of COVID-19 measures.
Nature Sustainability, 5, .
(doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00824-1).
Abstract
Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) increased during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce virus transmission. Here, we quantitatively analyse emergence of PPE and COVID-19-related litter over 14 months for 11 countries using the litter collection application Litterati. The proportion of masks in litter increased by >80-fold as a result of COVID-19 legislation, from <0.01% to >0.8%. Gloves and wipes, more prevalent at ~0.2% of litter before the pandemic, doubled to 0.4%, but this has since fallen. Glove litter increased in the initial stages of the pandemic but fell after the introduction of facemask policies, whereupon there was an increase of facemask litter. National COVID-19 policy responses and international World Health Organization announcements and recommendations are a probable driver of PPE litter dynamics, especially the implementation of facemask policies. Waste management should be incorporated in designing future pandemic policies to avoid negative environmental legacies of mismanaged PPE.
Text
Roberts et al, Covid Litter final
- Accepted Manuscript
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 28 October 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 December 2021
Published date: March 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. The authors would like to thank the University of Portsmouth Revolution Plastics initiative for supporting the creation of this work and Litterati for their continued support in the development of this research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 456822
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/456822
ISSN: 2398-9629
PURE UUID: b3593aa9-4898-4937-823d-377fcc801546
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 12 May 2022 16:37
Last modified: 15 Oct 2024 04:01
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Keiron P. Roberts
Author:
Sui C. Phang
Author:
John B. Williams
Author:
David J. Hutchinson
Author:
Simon E. Kolstoe
Author:
Jasper de Bie
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
