The French nature conservation organisation Operation Clean Sea (Opération mer propre) sounds the alarm about the large amount of dumped #mondmaskers and hygienic gloves found in the Mediterranean. On an underwater shot, made near the luxury seaside resort of Antibes, you can see that the seabed is dotted with it. The organisation fears that this is just the beginning now that the population has massively switched to the use of such disposable protective equipment against the coronavirus. If the French population wear two or three of these masks every day throughout the year, this will result in 300 million kilos of waste.


The environmentalists say the mouth masks are difficult to detect because they look like jellyfish underwater. They fear, just as progress has been made in the fight against plastic bags and bottles, a major environmental problem if the population does not move massively to more sustainable versions. The disposable mouth masks are made of plastic that hardly or does not break down. An alternative are mouth masks that can be reused by washing them.

Here we go again. Disposable mouthcaps and gloves threaten the environment