Masks Worse than Plastic Bottles for the Environment?

By Mikhaylovskiy @ Shutterstock.com

On his blog, Dr. Joseph Mercola is raising the alarm over the threat mass masking poses to the world’s environment, despite not significantly reducing the incidence of infection. He writes (abridged):

The planet may be facing a new plastic crisis, similar to the one brought on by bottled water, but this time involving discarded face masks. “Mass masking” continues to be recommended by most public health groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite research showing masks do not significantly reduce the incidence of infection.¹

As a result, it’s estimated that 129 billion face masks are used worldwide each month, which works out to about 3 million masks a minute. Most of these are the disposable variety, made from plastic microfibers.²

Ranging in size from five millimeters (mm) to microscopic lengths, microplastics, which include microfibers, are being ingested by fish, plankton and other marine life, as well as the creatures on land that consume them (including humans³).

More than 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally annually — and that was before mask-wearing became a daily habit. Most of it ends up as waste in the environment, leading researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and Princeton University to warn that masks could quickly become “the next plastic problem.”⁴

Adding insult to injury, the first randomized controlled trial of more than 6,000 individuals to assess the effectiveness of surgical face masks against SARS-CoV-2 infection found masks did not statistically significantly reduce the incidence of infection.³⁵

Considering the lack of evidence for their use, and the potential harms to human health and the environment, it’s no wonder that calls for peaceful civil disobedience against mandatory masking are growing. The U.S. nonprofit Stand for Health Freedom has a widget you can use to contact your government representatives to let them know wearing a mask must be a personal choice.