COVID-19 PPE plastic material flows and waste management: Quantification and implications for South Africa
| Autor: | Annlizé Marnewick, Paul Mativenga, Kunle Ibukun Olatayo |
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| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
Environmental Engineering
Resource (biology) 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Supply chain Population Vulnerability 010501 environmental sciences 01 natural sciences South Africa Sankey diagram Humans Environmental Chemistry education Pandemics Personal Protective Equipment Waste Management and Disposal Personal protective equipment 0105 earth and related environmental sciences education.field_of_study Waste management SARS-CoV-2 Material flow analysis COVID-19 Pollution Material flow Business Plastics |
| Zdroj: | Science of The Total Environment. 790:148190 |
| ISSN: | 0048-9697 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148190 |
| Popis: | The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerability of countries to resource constraints while highlighting the indispensability of plastic. Personal protective equipment (PPE), comprising plastic materials, is experiencing an unusual increase in demand globally due to unprecedented consumption for the protection of healthcare workers and the general population. There is a need to model and better understand the material implications of the pandemic. In this research, material flow analysis was used to model the flow of plastic material pre-COVID-19 in South Africa and the additional contribution of the COVID-19 PPE to the plastic footprint. Sankey diagrams were developed to capture the material flow analysis. The mass flow of PPE through the supply chain during the ongoing pandemic is relatively smaller compared to the total national plastic. However, the number of separate PPE items presents a major and growing problem for waste management systems. This paper puts the COVID-19 resource requirements into perspective in relation to South Africa's total national plastic and provides the first known estimate of COVID-19 plastic material resources and waste legacy. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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