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Positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on the environment: A critical review with sustainability approaches
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This review examines both the positive and negative environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. While lockdowns temporarily reduced air, water, and noise pollution, the massive increase in disposable masks, gloves, and plastic packaging created a surge in microplastic contamination. The study highlights how the pandemic exposed the tension between public health measures and environmental sustainability.
• COVID-19 has significant impacts on environment, society and economy. • COVID-19 helped to reduce air, water and noise pollution with cleaner landscapes. • COVID-19 increased microplastic pollution, because of excessive use of masks, bottles etc. • COVID-19 has increased waste (biomedical) generation and environmental footprint. • Sustainable approaches need to be followed in post covid era. Coronavirus, which practically brought the world to a standstill, is a member of the Coronaviridae family of the order Nidovirales, and was termed as the "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2″ (SARS-CoV-2) by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic was probably the most critical healthcare and scientific challenge of this century. Apart from health concerns, the pandemic has also resulted in certain long-lasting social, economic, and environmental issues. The article, for the first time, executes a multidisciplinary assessment of the effects of COVID-19 on the environment, highlighting future research approaches and the possible ways to achieve sustainability in the post-COVID era. Both positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic are discussed in this context. While there are certain positive impacts of COVID-19 on the environment (including reduced air, water and noise pollution with cleaner landscapes), the negative impacts (increased production and consumption of plastics, increase in waste generation because of online consumption, decrease in waste recycling, energy consumption in vaccine manufacturing) pose considerable threats to the environment. We highlight urgent research priorities, and also discuss potential means of tackling any such pandemic in the future without hampering sustainable lifestyle or jeopardizing the environment and ecosystem dynamics. The findings will help to identify the possible areas of concern of pandemic management and can help in formulation of policies which will be helpful to reduce the impact of future pandemics on the environment.
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This review examines the environmental consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding that while short-term air quality improvements occurred during lockdowns, the long-term negative effects are far more significant. Researchers documented massive increases in single-use plastic waste from masks, gloves, and packaging, contributing substantially to microplastic pollution. The study highlights that the pandemic reversed progress on waste reduction and created new challenges for environmental management across waste, energy, and pollution sectors.
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