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Review
. 2022 Apr 1:815:152980.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.152980. Epub 2022 Jan 8.

Environmental risks of polymer materials from disposable face masks linked to the COVID-19 pandemic

Hao Du  1 , Shushi Huang  2 , Jun Wang  3
Affiliations
Review

Environmental risks of polymer materials from disposable face masks linked to the COVID-19 pandemic

Hao Du et al. Sci Total Environ. .

Abstract

The indispensable role of plastic products in our daily life is highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic again. Disposable face masks, made of polymer materials, as effective and cheap personal protective equipment (PPE), have been extensively used by the public to slow down the viral transmission. The repercussions of this have generated million tons of plastic waste being littered into the environment because of the improper disposal and mismanagement amid. And plastic waste can release microplastics (MPs) with the help of physical, chemical and biological processes, which is placing a huge MPs contamination burden on the ecosystem. In this work, the knowledge regarding to the combined effects of MPs and pollutants from the release of face masks and the impacts of wasted face masks and MPs on the environment (terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem) was systematically discussed. In view of these, some green technologies were put forward to reduce the amounts of discarded face masks in the environment, therefore minimizing MPs pollution at its source. Moreover, some recommendations for future research directions were proposed based on the remaining knowledge gaps. In a word, MPs pollution linked to face masks should be a focus worldwide.

Keywords: COVID-19; Face mask waste; Health risks; Microplastics; Plastic pollution.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Unlabelled Image
Graphical abstract
Fig. A.1
Fig. A.1
The overall flow of disposable face masks treatment (Khoo et al., 2021).
Fig. A.2
Fig. A.2
A general description on the fate of MPs from disposable face masks in the environment (Abbasi et al., 2020).
Fig. A.3
Fig. A.3
The potential health impacts of disposable face masks and MPs in aquatic and terrestrial system (Jedruchniewicz et al., 2021; Silva et al., 2021a).
Fig. A.4
Fig. A.4
The potential bioaccumulation of MPs/NPs from the release of face masks (Ma et al., 2021).
Fig. A.5
Fig. A.5
The fate of disposable face masks during COVID-19 pandemic (Parashar and Hait, 2021).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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