Indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment: How plastic contamination from disposable surgical masks affect early development of plants.

ABSTRACT: Personal protective equipment, used extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic, heavily burdened the environment due to improper waste management. Owing to their fibrous structure, layered non-woven polypropylene (PP) disposable masks release secondary fragments at a much higher rate than other plastic waste types, thus, posing a barely understood new form of ecological hazard. Here we show that PP mask fragments of different sizes induce morphogenic responses in plants during their early development. Using in vitro systems and soil-filled rhizotrons, we found that several PP mask treatments modified the root growth of Brassica napus (L.) regardless of the experimental system. The environment around the root and mask fragments seemed to influence the effect of PP fabric fragment contaminatio

SUBMITTER: Meszaros E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9158377 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature