It is feared that the number of dumped, contaminated, disposable face masks could read 19.5 billion.
That’s according to litter pickers across the UK who are reporting an increase in the number of dumped face masks being spotted during their patrols. The scale of the problem of people recklessly dumping their face masks after they’ve used them is massive as we use fifty two million single use plastic masks a day and sadly some of these are being dropped or simply fall out of people’s pockets as they walk around from place to place.
What 19.5 billion single use face masks in numbers looks like:
52 million a day
1.6 billion a month
19.5 billion a year – weight equivalent to 5 ½ Eiffel Towers
It can be very hard to dispose of used face masks as they are often not recyclable and people find it hard to handle them as they are afraid of accidentally infecting themselves with the virus that could be on the mask. This in turn makes it hard for them to interact with other people for fear of passing on the virus if they have handled a used face mask.
Litter pickers across the country are reporting an increasing number of masks being collected during their rounds. In Fife, the Street Champions group reported finding 1 mask for every 60m they patrolled near a shopping area in Rosyth – they have collected a total of 3,500 since March. This is common across the whole of the UK.
Max Ratcliffe, aged 6, from Menston in West Yorkshire took part in a home-schooling project to examine litter and its effect on the environment in his local wood. He was shocked by how many masks he spotted, with 1 dumped mask found every 50m on a path popular with dog walkers.
“I think it’s really bad. People should put them in the bin. Animals might eat them, and they might die”, reported Max.
“The way to tackle this potential environmental disaster is for everyone to move towards washable reusable masks, not only will this cut down on single use mask litter, but it also reduces the environmental impacts of manufacturing 19.5 billion plastic masks in the first place. As a country we have worked so hard to reduce plastic consumption, yet we are sleepwalking into another nightmare”, concludes Charlotte Green of TradeWaste.co.uk
As many face masks can be made of plastic, this is non recyclable and if dumped can take many years to degrade. This causes many problems for the environment. As well as just being litter, it increases the risk of global warming which will lead to the ice caps melting and the planet becoming flooded.
A campaign has been launched to help people get rid of their disposal face masks and switch to cloth, reusable ones. These can be much better for the environment and also be better at protecting people against the virus. It has been proven that triple layer cloth face masks are a lot better at protecting people from contacting the virus than plastic ones.
Ditch your Disposable Face Mask in 2021 and save £190
A single use disposable face mask costs 18p
Over a year using 3 per day this is £197.10
A washable face mask costs £1.40 (Pack of 5 is £6.99)
If you can use 5 masks by washing them, then over a year this is a saving of £190.11
So why not do something different and protect the planet at the same time. Buy a cloth, triple layer, reusable face mask and help protect your self and the environment.
