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Personal protective equipment and micro-nano plastics: A review of an unavoidable interrelation for a global well-being hazard
Summary
This review examines how personal protective equipment like masks and gloves, widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic, breaks down into micro- and nanoplastics when improperly disposed of. These tiny plastic fragments enter the environment and have been shown to be harmful to living organisms based on their size, shape, and chemical makeup. The study highlights a growing concern that pandemic-era protective gear is contributing to plastic pollution in soil, water, and air.
The usage and the demand for personal protective equipments (PPEs) for our day-to-day survival in this pandemic period of COVID-19 have seen a steep rise which has consequently led to improper disposal and littering. Fragmentation of these PPE units has eventually given way to micro-nano plastics (MNPs) emission in the various environmental matrices and exposure of living organisms to these MNPs has proven to be severely toxic. Numerous factors contribute to the toxicity imparted by these MNPs that mainly include their shape, size, functional groups and their chemical diversity. Even though multiple studies on the impacts of MNPs toxicity are available for other organisms, human cell line studies for various plastic polymers, other than the most common ones namely polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS) and polypropylene (PP), are still at their nascent stage and need to be explored more. In this article, we cover a concise review of the literature on the impact of these MNPs in biotic and human systems focusing on the constituents of the PPE units and the additives that are essentially used for their manufacturing. This review will subsequently identify the need to gather scientific evidence at the smaller level to help combat this microplastic pollution and induce a more in-depth understanding of its adverse effect on our existence.
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