Positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on the environment: A critical review with sustainability approaches

Coronavirus, which practically brought the world to a standstill, is a member of the Coronaviridae family of the order Nidovirales, and was termed as the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2″ (SARS-CoV-2) by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic was probably the most critical healthcare and scientific challenge of this century. Apart from health concerns, the pandemic has also resulted in certain long-lasting social, economic, and environmental issues. The article, for the first time, executes a multidisciplinary assessment of the effects of COVID-19 on the environment, highlighting future research approaches and the possible ways to achieve sustainability in the post-COVID era. Both positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic are discussed in this context. While there are certain positive impacts of COVID-19 on the environment (including reduced air, water and noise pollution with cleaner landscapes), the negative impacts (increased production and consumption of plastics, increase in waste generation because of online consumption, decrease in waste recycling, energy consumption in vaccine manufacturing) pose considerable threats to the environment. We highlight urgent research priorities, and also discuss potential means of tackling any such pandemic in the future without hampering sustainable lifestyle or jeopardizing the environment and ecosystem dynamics. The findings will help to identify the possible areas of concern of pandemic management and can help in formulation of policies which will be helpful to reduce the impact of future pandemics on the environment.