Novel Covid-19: The Surge in Plastics (Known-Unknowns), Its Impacts on Public and Environmental Health and The Way Forward

Dreaded realities await us each day as we wake up due to the impact of anthropogenic activities. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has etched itself into every aspect of our lives, changing the way we behave and creating new normal. Our consumption habit has been unsustainable even before coronavirus hit. COVID-19 has just made a bad situation much worse. Since news of the coronavirus was first announced in January, its horrors have not stopped. The number of cases worldwide is still rising, and its death toll is appallingly high. Lockdowns was introduced in order to curb transmission of COVID-19 in which both e-commerce and health sectors resolved to using plastics ('known unknowns'). There is no denying that single-use plastic has been a lifesaver in the fight against COVID-19, especially for frontline health workers. It has also facilitated adherence to social-distancing rules, by enabling home delivery of basic goods, especially food. And it may have helped to curb transmission, by replacing reusable coffee cups and shopping bags in many cities over fears that the virus could stick to them. Though other studies have shown that SARS-COV-2 still last longer on single-use plastics (72 hours) than on cardboard (24 hours) and yet the paper industry association is not using this as an opportunity to lobby or directly profit from the crisis in comparison to the plastic industry association appealing for reversal on the ban of single-use plastics. Plastic pollution impacts behind the scenes on public and environmental health have both short-and longterm effects. Plastic-to-Ocean movement has created a lot of micro-and nano plastics in an alarming rate. The question is, would the COVID-19 crisis prompt innovation for waste reduction, as it had for virtual health access, small business e-commerce, community collaboration and more? This review suggests recent environmentally friendly and sustainable plastic waste management practices. Plastic waste would be a thing of the past through the most recent molecular re-engineering technique which combined two super enzymes, PETase and MHETase which yielded a faster breakdown of PET. Also, plastic waste can be fought through the use of underwater robot called Smart Infrared Based Remotely Operated Vehicle to identify microplastics in marine environments. The