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Disposal of Hospital Waste in Cambodia (October 2021)
Photo: Cindy Liu / Getty Images
The numbers are only estimates - but they are impressive: the corona pandemic led to around 8.4 million tons of additional plastic waste worldwide up to August alone.
The reason for this is not least the increased need for single-use plastic in nursing.
At least that's what researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California in San Diego are currently calculating in the specialist journal »PNAS«.
They evaluated data from 193 countries - and concluded that the pandemic is "increasing the pressure on a global plastic waste problem that is already out of control."
The team led by scientists Yiming Peng and Peipei Wu assumes that a large part of the additional corona waste (around 87.4 percent) originated in hospitals, especially in Asian countries.
Around 7.6 percent of plastic waste can be traced back to masks and other protective equipment for private use.
The packaging of corona home tests was also recorded.
According to the scientists, packaging for the booming online trade accounted for around 4.7 percent of the additional waste.
To put it into perspective: According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), mankind produces a total of around 300 million tons of plastic waste per year.
The additional 8.4 million tons are only a fraction - but are still an impressively large amount.
The mountain of rubbish continues to grow
"Plastic waste harms marine life and has become a major global environmental problem," say the researchers.
More than 25,000 tons of corona rubbish have already ended up in the oceans.
This is a long-standing problem for the marine environment. Within three to four years, a large proportion of this litter will either wash up on beaches or sink to the sea floor.
According to the evaluation, by the end of the century almost all of the plastic waste associated with the pandemic - and not otherwise disposed of - will end up either on the seabed or on the beaches.
The researchers called for better management of medical waste, especially in developing countries.
One must also assume that it will take years to get the pandemic under control.
By the end of this year alone, the amount of plastic waste generated in this way could already amount to a total of eleven million tons.
chs / dpa