Environmental hazards of chin straps and gloves …

Surgical chin straps, the use of which has increased exponentially during the pandemic that began over a year ago, are becoming a real danger to animals as most are found on beaches and rivers and put hundreds years to decompose.

According to the environmental organization OceansAsia, last year more than 1.5 billion chinstrap in the oceans, or 6,200 tons of additional plastic waste.

“Masks aren’t going away anytime soon, and when we throw them away they can threaten the environment and the animals that share our planet,” said Ashley Fruno of the animal rights association PETA in Asia, according to the agency. AFP press release.

In England, the bird protection organization Rspca, alerted by a passerby, rescued a seagull whose legs were tangled in a mask for nearly a week in Chemsford.

“The elastic straps had been tightened around his paws and his joints were swollen and painful,” Rspca inspector Adam Jones said, noting the animal had been like this for “several days”.

According to different activist groups, those most affected by medical waste, the production and use of which has increased due to the pandemic, could be marine animals.

In Brazil, an environmental protection association found jugular remains in the stomach of a penguin whose body was washed up on a beach, a puffer fish was also found trapped in a mask off the coast of Miami.

The French association Operation Clean Sea found a dead crab, trapped in a mask in the Berre lagoon, near Marseille, in September.

Chinstrap and latex gloves “are very problematic” for sea creatures, underlines George Leonard, scientific director of the American organization Ocean Conservancy.

“When these plastics break down in nature, they become smaller and smaller particles,” explained the specialist and pointed out that these particles can enter the food chain and have an impact on ecosystems.