Environmental Decay of Single Use Surgical Face Masks as an Agent of Plastic Micro-Fiber Pollution

Abstract

Large numbers of Single Use Surgical-type Face Masks, used by the public as personal protective equipment during the 2020–2022 COVID-19 pandemic, have been lost or intentionally discarded and have entered the environment rather than the waste management stream. These masks, made from non-woven polypropylene fibers, will undergo environmental decay which will release fiber fragments as microplastics into the environment. While the photochemical process of the decay of polypropylene polymers (photo-oxidation) is well understood, and while there are numerous studies that investigate mask decay and micro-fiber shedding in laboratory settings, there are no observational data that describe the progress and speed of decay on polypropylene face masks in real-life environmental settings. This paper examines the breakdown of single use surgical-type face masks under natural conditions. Masks from three manufacturers were exposed to natural sunlight over a ten-week period and their state of decay was photographically recorded in situ at weekly intervals. Visible decay accelerated after three weeks, with masks made from thinner spunbond fabric decaying more rapidly. Among same-weight fabric, photo-oxidation affected fabric dyed light blue more than undyed fabric, leading to a total breakdown after six weeks. The results are novel as they demonstrate a differential decay between the spunbonded and the melt-blown fabric, which cracks and breaks down much faster due to thinner fibers of shorter length and the lack of thermal bonding points. The resultant extensive micro-fiber generation was accelerated by external physical forces such as wind. This experiment highlights the fact that municipal agencies have only a narrow window of time to remove stray face masks from the urban environment if micro-fiber pollution is to be prevented.

COVID-19 clinical waste reuse: A triboelectric touch sensor for IoT-cloud supported smart hand sanitizer dispenser

“…ii) An inner light-colored hydrophilic layer to absorb droplets from exhaled breath and iii) A middle filter layer placed into the pocket between the inner and outer layers [33] . The inner and outer layers are made of nonwoven spun-bound polypropylene, and the middle layer with nonwoven melt-blown polypropylene [34] . XRD plots of these three layers were examined in the 2θ range of 10–30°, as shown in Fig.…”

Memories of COVID-19: The Types of Fitted Face Masks Between Public Health Advice and Personal Choice

“…In total twelve different designs of fitted face masks are represented in the sample and described here. The total number of examples acquired was much higher [13,58]. A study of single-use polypropylene masks, for example, recorded over 80 examples from different manufacturers [59,60], while a documentation of fabric masks lost or discarded [14], as well as fabric masks donated to charity [13] showed a considerable number of variations in the number and placement of pleats among expandable masks (Figure 1) or the shape and ear-loop attachment of one-piece masks (Figure 2).…”

“…Single-use face masks manufactured from three-or four-ply polypropylene, with a melt-blown filter layer sandwiched between outer layers of spunbonded polypropylene fabric [60], were the most common type of face masks encountered being worn by passersby during walk-through surveys in Albury, [24] as well as Sydney and Melbourne [61,62]. They were also the most common type encountered lost or discarded on the ground [14,25].…”

“…[8][9][10] The high demand for face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rapidly expanded production and use of non-sterile, surgical-type single-use face masks, the majority of which was sourced from Chinese manufacturers [11]. Since these were far more common than washable masks from cotton and other fabrics, [12][13][14] single-use face masks soon posed environmental issues [15,16]. The quantity of single-use face masks manufactured is staggering, with China exporting more than 200 billion masks in 2020 alone [17].…”

“…usage of reusable vs disposable fitted face masks. This could be achieved through observational studies of face mask use [24], assessments of lost and discarded [14,25] as well as donated masks [13], and through a documentation of the longer-term fate of discarded single-use face masks in the urban and peri-urban environment [15,16,26]. While the majority of mainstream research focused on the environmental aspects of discarded masks [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], several authors have conducted work on masks in the social acceptability [41][42][43][44][45] and the future heritage space [46][47][48][49][50].…”