Fact Check: Is Plastic Essential in the Fight Against COVID-19?
Despite the law of January 1, 2020, banning the use of certain single-use plastic items (straws, cutlery, etc.), plastic is making a strong comeback.
Nathalie Gontard, INRAE and Valérie Guillard, University of Montpellier
Manufacturers in the sector are riding the Covid-19 wave: packaging, outer packaging, masks, face shields, protective gear for retail workers, and plexiglass are being produced and consumed on a massive scale.
The transparency of plastic makes it an ideal choice when it comes to separating customers from a store, for example. But the hygiene argument is the most commonly cited: as a disposable material, plastic is said to offer greater protection than other materials.
What exactly is the situation? Our experts compare, among other things, plastic masks and masks made of natural fibers.
Microfiber masks… made of plastic
The most common, least expensive, and most widely distributed masks are made of a blend of polypropylene microfibers—the quintessential plastic resin. Polypropylene is the second most widely used plastic after polyethylene. You’ll easily find it in your neighbor’s artificial turf or even in your car’s bumper. Other masks are made from polyester microfibers.
The microfiber layer in these masks is designed to allow breathing air to pass through while blocking small particles suspended in the air—such as microdroplets of water capable of carrying a virus—emitted by the people wearing them… or by those who aren’t wearing them.
Synthetic microfibers are inexpensive and produced in abundance by the petrochemical industry. As a result, items containing these fibers can be easily purchased and then discarded—a convenient way to save time, the great obsession of modern times. Furthermore, new items or virgin materials (still) convey an image of progress, guaranteed quality, and safety—particularly in terms of health—for those who can afford them. Disposable products promise to renew this assurance of health and safety as often as desired.
The Health Crisis: An Opportunity for Some
It was precisely the coronavirus health crisis that led to a resurgence in the use of plastic and boosted sales of disposable products: masks, as well as single-use cups at fast-food restaurants, online orders and “drive-through” food wrapped in plastic film, shopping bags, and protective screens in stores and restaurants, among other items.
The coronavirus crisis has struck us right in the middle of a global push to reduce plastic use. The disposable products category is now trying to return to the forefront to establish itself as the hygienic material that saves lives by preventing contamination caused by the reuse of materials.
The economic stakes are so high that some manufacturers have no qualms about riding the wave of anxiety sparked by the health crisis to flout the bans and revive their businesses. On April 8, the EuPC, the lobby group for European plastics processors, sent a letter to the European Commission asking it to postpone the European Single-Use Plastics (SUP) Directive “by at least one additional year at the national level” and to “lift all bans” already in place—a request that was rejected by the Commission.
Is natural fiber less clean and less effective?
The virus can survive for several hours to several days on all surfaces, including plastic microfibers. All other things being equal, a coronavirus would survive much longer on a disposable polypropylene microfiber lab coat than on a cotton lab coat or a paper surface.
Furthermore, masks made of natural fibers such as cotton, flannel, silk, or hemp offer filtering capabilities that are just as effective as those of a surgical mask made of synthetic fibers, trapping at least 80% of particles with an average size of 60 nanometers through a combination of physical filtration and electrostatic effects. The effectiveness of a sufficiently dense mask, regardless of the type of fibers used, depends primarily on how well it fits the contours of the face.
But above all, plastic persists for a long time—up to several centuries—in our environment in the form of microfibers and then nanoparticles. The microfibers from your mask are likely to end up on your plate or that of your grandchildren. The process is quite relentless: plastic microfibers break down, fragment, multiply, spread throughout our environment, become laden with pollutants, and ultimately contaminate our food chain and threaten the proper functioning of living organisms’ organs. The major risk associated with plastic use lies not only inCO₂ emissions during its lifecycle, but above all in its ability to generate fine-particle pollution long after it has been used. As they biodegrade, natural fibers have always managed to fade into the background by reintegrating into the biological carbon cycle and therefore do not pose the ultimate danger that plastic does.
Pragmatism and Caution
It would be tempting to give up and backtrack on single-use plastics by focusing on incentives to collect and subsequently recycle used masks. But “recycling” means restoring an object to the properties it had before use, so that it can be reused in the same way. It is therefore a loop that, to be effective, needs to be closed—something we cannot do with synthetic microfibers, as they degrade irreversibly during use.
So, let’s try to stay the course and remain pragmatic during these times of viral chaos: washing a mask made of natural fibers remains the most effective way to recycle it—eliminating contaminants, particularly viruses—the most economical and environmentally friendly option available, and the most accessible to everyone.
“The precautionary principle,” which we have been applying rigorously in recent months, should also be applied to the use of plastic. Since there is no certainty regarding the long-term safety of plastic waste, let’s keep only the plastics that are essential and get rid of the rest… Here’s hoping that the amount still in use will not exceed the level that our planet and our bodies can handle without suffering too much.
While plastics have extraordinary properties and are indispensable for certain uses, let’s remember that we embraced them primarily because they were readily available, inexpensive, and we believed them to be harmless. Now that we recognize the dangers, let’s take off our “all-plastic” glasses and commit to reinventing ourselves by choosing, whenever possible, materials and items that are reusable, washable, and biodegradable at the end of their life cycle.
_This fact-check was conducted in partnership with the Journalism and Science program at the ESJ in Lille. _
Nathalie Gontard, Research Director, Professor, Food and Packaging Sciences, INRAE and Valérie Guillard, Professor, Process Engineering Applied to Life Sciences, Member of the Institut Universitaire de France, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.