Face Masks - Protecting the Wearer But Neglecting the Aquatic Environment?

In Bangladesh, as with many countries, the spread of COVID-19 made the single-use face mask, a non-pharmaceutical intervention surged in mass popularity along with healthcare professionals. Consequently, irresponsible discarding of cast-off masks and waste mismanagement are putting huge pollution burden on aquatic environments. In particular, slow degradation of mask-derived polypropylene and polyethylene create large reservoir of microplastic pollutants making their impact on aquatic animals challenging. These omnipresent microplastic can cause acute inhibition and alteration of physiology within aquatic organisms; whereas oxidative processes, immunity and hormonal systems may be affected in the long run. Such affects are likely to disrupt the aquatic food web and with its carcinogenic, mutagenic and neurotoxic properties, biomagnification of microplastics may ultimately become a malign threat to human health. To mitigate these chronic impacts on the environment, a number of recommendations are made that, if adopted, would reduce entry of microplastics into the aquatic environments.