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– The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the plague of plastic in the world’s oceans. Divers in the Philippines say that after returning to coral reefs when a national lockdown was lifted, they were baffled to find more plastic in the sea than they’d ever seen before, including countless surgical masks, the BBC reports. A dive professional says that in the first 10 minutes of a dive off a coral reef in Batangas, southeast of Manila, he collected at least a dozen masks from the reef, some of which were covered in algae and had clearly been there for months.
Environmental groups warn that plastic in the masks is being broken down into microplastics, which are consumed by marine life. They are urging the government to introduce stricter controls for medical waste disposal. Researchers say Manila produced an additional 280 tons of such waste per day during the pandemic alone. And the problem is global: Last year, in the early months of the pandemic, campaigners in France said they found large amounts of personal protective equipment in the Mediterranean and warned that there could be ‘more masks than jellyfish’ soon. Guardian reports. They called on the public to use reusable masks instead of disposable masks. (Read more stories about face masks.)