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Analysis of increased consumption and disposal of ppe polymers during the COVID-19 pandemic and possible environmental impacts.
Summary
This paper examines the environmental impacts of increased disposal of PPE (personal protective equipment) including masks and gloves during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that these items release microplastics as they degrade. The pandemic dramatically increased single-use plastic waste, adding a new major source of microplastic pollution to the environment.
Concern about the environmental impacts caused by the pandemic has been raised by several authors (PATRÍCIO SILVA et al., 2021).Although some studies explore possible solutions for the PPE disposal (PATRÍCIO SILVA et al., 2020), the possible environmental impacts of increased disposal of PPE used during the pandemic are still not fully understood.The study of environmental impacts linked to polymeric waste is essential to reduce the impacts potentiated by the pandemic.In this context, this study aims to identify and analyze the environmental impacts linked to the increased consumption and disposal of post-consumer PPE polymers during the pandemic.In addition, it also seeks to provide scientific evidence to assess which actions to mitigate environmental impacts can be carried out. MethodologyThe methodology used in this study was the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of scientific articles.By doing this, we sought to evaluate the contributions already made to understand the environmental impacts linked to the increase in the disposal of post-consumer PPE polymers.