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Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco

The increasing use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as a sanitary measure against the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has become a significant source of many environmental risks. The majority of the governments enforce the use of PPE in public areas, such as beaches. Thus, the use and disposal of...

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Autores principales: Haddad, Mohamed Ben, De-la-Torre, Gabriel E., Abelouah, Mohamed Rida, Hajji, Sara, Alla, Aicha Ait
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier B.V. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8313889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34332387
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149282
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author Haddad, Mohamed Ben
De-la-Torre, Gabriel E.
Abelouah, Mohamed Rida
Hajji, Sara
Alla, Aicha Ait
author_facet Haddad, Mohamed Ben
De-la-Torre, Gabriel E.
Abelouah, Mohamed Rida
Hajji, Sara
Alla, Aicha Ait
author_sort Haddad, Mohamed Ben
collection PubMed
description The increasing use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as a sanitary measure against the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has become a significant source of many environmental risks. The majority of the governments enforce the use of PPE in public areas, such as beaches. Thus, the use and disposal of PPE have compromised most solid waste management strategies, ultimately leading to the occurrence of PPE polluting the marine environment. The present study aimed to monitor the PPE pollution associated with COVID-19 along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco. In parallel, the influence of the activities carried out in each sampled beach before and after the lockdown break was reported. Overall, a total number of 689 PPE items were identified, with a mean density of 1.13 × 10(−5) PPE m(−2) (0–1.21 × 10(−4) PPE m(−2)). The majority of the PPE items found were face masks (96.81%), out of which 98.4% were surgical masks and 1.6% were reusable cloth masks. The most polluted sites were the beaches with recreational activities, followed by surfing, and fishing as the main activity. Importantly, PPE density increased significantly after lockdown measures. Additionally, the discarded PPE sampled in the supralittoral zone was higher than PPE recorded in the intertidal zone. This confirms that PPE items are driven by the beachgoers during their visit. PPE items are a source of microplastic and chemical pollutants, a substrate to invasive species colonization, and a potential threat of entanglement, ingestion, and/or infection among apex predators. In the specific case of Agadir beaches, significant efforts are required to work on the lack of environmental awareness and education. It is recommended to improve beach cleaning strategies and to penalize incorrect PPE disposal. Additional alternatives may be adopted, as the involvement of biodegradable materials in PPE manufacturing, recycling through pyrolysis, and encouraging reusable and washable masks.
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spelling pubmed-83138892021-07-27 Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco Haddad, Mohamed Ben De-la-Torre, Gabriel E. Abelouah, Mohamed Rida Hajji, Sara Alla, Aicha Ait Sci Total Environ Article The increasing use of personal protective equipment (PPE) as a sanitary measure against the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has become a significant source of many environmental risks. The majority of the governments enforce the use of PPE in public areas, such as beaches. Thus, the use and disposal of PPE have compromised most solid waste management strategies, ultimately leading to the occurrence of PPE polluting the marine environment. The present study aimed to monitor the PPE pollution associated with COVID-19 along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco. In parallel, the influence of the activities carried out in each sampled beach before and after the lockdown break was reported. Overall, a total number of 689 PPE items were identified, with a mean density of 1.13 × 10(−5) PPE m(−2) (0–1.21 × 10(−4) PPE m(−2)). The majority of the PPE items found were face masks (96.81%), out of which 98.4% were surgical masks and 1.6% were reusable cloth masks. The most polluted sites were the beaches with recreational activities, followed by surfing, and fishing as the main activity. Importantly, PPE density increased significantly after lockdown measures. Additionally, the discarded PPE sampled in the supralittoral zone was higher than PPE recorded in the intertidal zone. This confirms that PPE items are driven by the beachgoers during their visit. PPE items are a source of microplastic and chemical pollutants, a substrate to invasive species colonization, and a potential threat of entanglement, ingestion, and/or infection among apex predators. In the specific case of Agadir beaches, significant efforts are required to work on the lack of environmental awareness and education. It is recommended to improve beach cleaning strategies and to penalize incorrect PPE disposal. Additional alternatives may be adopted, as the involvement of biodegradable materials in PPE manufacturing, recycling through pyrolysis, and encouraging reusable and washable masks. Elsevier B.V. 2021-12-01 2021-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC8313889/ /pubmed/34332387 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149282 Text en © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Haddad, Mohamed Ben
De-la-Torre, Gabriel E.
Abelouah, Mohamed Rida
Hajji, Sara
Alla, Aicha Ait
Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title_full Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title_fullStr Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title_full_unstemmed Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title_short Personal protective equipment (PPE) pollution associated with the COVID-19 pandemic along the coastline of Agadir, Morocco
title_sort personal protective equipment (ppe) pollution associated with the covid-19 pandemic along the coastline of agadir, morocco
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8313889/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34332387
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149282
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