| Abstrakt: |
A year ago, for most, our "new normal" as we call it, would never have crossed their minds, yet here we are, wearing masks and very widely side-stepping everyone on the sidewalk because we view them as potential coronavirus carriers. Yet, those who study humanity and its interactions with nature, are not surprised. We have had viruses like this before, but they have not spread this quickly or acted this aggressively. We can only hope that after this is over, we will have learned so we are ready the next time. As we deal with the immediate problems of this disease, most other environmental problems have moved into the background. Waste management and climate change are two of the main ones. In order to protect ourselves, we need to wear personal protective equipment which ranges from simple masks for most, to full body gear for those on the front lines. The amount of waste this generates is massive and when garbologists perform waste characterisations in landfills years from now, they will find the "coronavirus period" as a distinct layer. The problem of this layer is that it consists of a lot of single-use plastic which in the last decades has proven to be very problematic for the environment. While there have been some temporary improvements in air quality due to people not moving around as much, there has been a notable increase in the amount of litter being generated as well as the amount of waste generated by households due to online shopping, home delivery of food and the generation of medical waste. These issues are discussed in this paper with a view to highlighting the scale of problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
