An emerging source of plastic pollution: Environmental presence of plastic personal protective equipment (PPE) debris related to COVID-19 in a metropolitan city.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented surge of production, consumption, and disposal of personal protective equipment (PPE) including face masks, disposable gloves, and disinfectant wipes, which are often made of single use plastic. Widespread public use of these items has imposed pressure on municipalities to properly collect and dispose of potentially infectious PPE. There has been a lack of structured monitoring efforts to quantify the emerging trend of improperly disposed of PPE debris. In this study, we present a baseline monitoring survey to describe the spatial distribution of PPE debris during the COVID-19 pandemic from the metropolitan city of Toronto, Canada. Our objectives were to: (1) quantify PPE debris types among surveyed areas and; (2) identify PPE debris d

SUBMITTER: Ammendolia J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7833877 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature