The Massive Misuse of Face Mask as a Risk to COVID-19 Pandemic in Latin American: The Case of Mexico

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a great challenge in waste management around the world. While the use of face masks has been shown to reduce the number of transmissions of COVID-19, it has also generated a high amount of waste, undermining the capacity of authorities and dumping areas to manage medical waste correctly. Latin American countries are particularly vulnerable because they are not self-sufficient to ensure adequate used facemasks management during the outbreak. The pandemic has led to poor purchasing practices, use, and disposal of this type of product, which can cause environmental contamination and health problems. This article focuses on Latin American using Mexico as a study case since it is one of the countries most affected by the pandemic. That shows the health risks of the population exposed to social inequalities and evaluates the future environmental implications arising from a lack of legislation for correct disposal of waste management in several Latin American countries, such as the generation of microplastics or plastic pollution. Since the pandemic is predicted to last until 2021, this is a good scenario to develop new policies for good urban solid waste management in favor of human health and the environment.