Challenges, Strategies, and Recommendations for the Huge Surge in Plastic and Medical Waste during the Global COVID-19 Pandemic with Circular Economy Approach

Viral diseases and the environment relationship

Viral diseases have been present throughout human history, with early examples including influenza (1500 B.C.), smallpox (1000 B.C.), and measles (200 B.C.). The term "virus" was first used in the late 1800s to describe microorganisms smaller than bacteria, and significant milestones include the discovery of the polio virus and the development of its vaccine in the mid-1900s, and the identification of HIV/AIDS in the latter part of the 20th century. The 21st century has seen the emergence of new viral diseases such as West Nile Virus, Zika, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. Human activities, including crowding, travel, poor sanitation, and environmental changes like deforestation and climate change, significantly influence the spread of these diseases. Conversely, viral diseases can impact the environment by polluting water resources, contributing to deforestation, and reducing biodiversity. These environmental impacts are exacerbated by disruptions in global supply chains and increased demands for resources. This review highlights the intricate relationship between viral diseases and environmental factors, emphasizing how human activities and viral disease progression influence each other. The findings underscore the need for integrated approaches to address the environmental determinants of viral diseases and mitigate their impacts on both health and ecosystems.

Public attitudes toward medical waste: Experiences from 141 countries

BACKGROUND

Medical Waste (MW), conceptualized as waste generated in the diagnosis, treatment, or immunization of human beings or animals, posing massive threat to public health. Environment-friendly public attitudes promotes the shaping of pro-environmental behavior. However, the public attitudes of MW and the potential determinants remained scarce. The present study aims to reveal globally public attitudes towards MW and captured the determinants.

METHODS

We integrated the crawler technology with sentiment analysis to captured the public attitudes toward MW across 141 specific countries from 3,789,764 related tweets. Multiple cross-national databases were integrated to assess characteristics including risk, resistance, environment, and development. The spatial regression model was taken to counterbalence the potential statistical bias.

RESULTS

Overall, the global public attitudes towards MW were positive, and varied significantly across countries. Resilience (β = 0.78, SD = 0.14, P < 0.01) and development (β = 1.66, SD = 0.13, P < 0.01) posed positive influence on public attitudes towards MW, meanwhile, risk (β = -0.1, SD = 0.12, P > 0.05) and environment (β = 0.09, SD = 0.09, P > 0.05) were irrelated to the shaping of positive MW public attitudes. Several positive moderating influences was also captured. Additionally, the cross-national disparities of the determiants were also captured, more specific, public attitudes towards MW in extremely poor areas were more likely to be negatively affected by risks, resilience and development.

CONCLUSIONS

This study focused mainly on the public attitudes as well as captured the potential determinants. Public attitudes towards MW were generally positive, but there were large cross-national disparities. Stakeholders would need to designate targeted strategies to enhance public satisfaction with MW management.

Does medical waste research during COVID-19 meet the challenge induced by the pandemic to waste management?

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented amount of medical waste, presenting significant challenges for the safe disposal of hazardous waste. A systematic review of existing research on COVID-19 and medical waste can help address these challenges by providing insights and recommendations for effective management of the massive medical waste generated during the pandemic. This study utilized bibliometric and text mining methods to survey the scientific outcomes related to COVID-19 and medical waste, drawing on data from the Scopus database. The results show that the spatial distribution of medical waste research is unbalanced. Surprisingly, developing countries rather than developed countries lead research in this area. Especially, China, a major contributor to the field, has the highest number of publications and citations, and is also a centre of international cooperation. The main study authors and research institutions are also mainly from China. And the research on medical waste is a multidisciplinary field. Text mining analysis shows that COVID-19 and medical waste research is mainly organized around four themes: (i) medical waste from personal protective equipment; (ii) research on medical waste in Wuhan, China; (iii) threats of medical waste to the environment and (iv) disposal and management of medical waste. This would serve to better understand the current state of medical waste research and to provide some implications for future research.

A review on medical waste treatment in COVID-19 pandemics: Technologies, managements and future strategies

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 few years ago, the increasing of the number of medical waste has become a huge issue because of their harmful impact to environment. A major concern associated to the limitation of technologies for dealing with medical waste, especially conventional technologies, are overcapacities since pandemic occurs. Moreover, the outbreak of new viruses from post COVID-19 should become a serious attention to be prevented not only environmental issues but also the spreading of viruses to new pandemic near the future. The high possibility of an outbreak of new viruses and mutation near the future should be prevented based on the experience associated with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the last 3 yr. This review presented information and strategies for handling medical waste during the outbreak of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19, and also information on the current issues related to technologies, such as incineration, pyrolysis/gasification, autoclaves and microwave treatment for the dealing with high numbers of medical waste in COVID-19 to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, their advantages and disadvantages. Plasma technology can be considered to be implemented as an alternative technology to deal with medical waste since incinerator is usually over capacities during the pandemic situation. Proper treatment of specific medical waste in pandemics, namely face masks, vaccine vials, syringes, and dead bodies, are necessary because those medical wastes are mediums for transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Furthermore, emission controls from incinerator and plasma are necessary to be implemented to reduce the high concentration of CO2, NOx, and VOCs during the treatment. Finally, future strategies of medical waste treatment in the perspective of potential outbreak pandemic from new mutation viruses are discussed in this review paper.Implications: Journal of the air and waste management association may consider our review paper to be published. In this review, we give important information related to the technologies, managements and strategies for handling the medical waste and control the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus, starting from proper technology to control the high number of medical waste, their pollutants and many strategies for controlling the spreading of SARS-CoV-2 virus. Moreover, this review also describes some strategies associated with control the transmission not only the SARS-CoV-2 virus but also the outbreak of new viruses near the future.

Spatiotemporal distribution of microplastics in Miri coastal area, NW Borneo: inference from a periodical observation

The current study aims to investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of microplastics (MPs) in the Miri coast, targeting their occurrences, characterisation, and potential sources. For a periodical study, coastal sediments were collected from three different time intervals (monsoon, post-monsoon, and post-COVID) and subjected to stereomicroscope, ATR-FTIR, and SEM-EDX analyses. These results show a significant increase of MPs in post-COVID samples by approximately 218% and 148% comparatively with monsoon and post-monsoon samples, respectively. The highest concentration of MPs was detected near the river mouths and industrial areas where the waste discharge rate and anthropogenic activities dominate. Fibre-type MPs are the most abundant, with an average of nearly 64%, followed by fragments, films, microbeads, and foams. The most dominant polymer types were polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), and polyester (PET). Overall, the current study shows a better understanding of MPs occurrence and potential sources in the Miri coastal area.

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) and their potential toxicological outcomes: State of science, knowledge gaps and research needs

Plastic waste has been produced at a rapidly growing rate over the past several decades. The environmental impacts of plastic waste on marine and terrestrial ecosystems have been recognized for years. Recently, researchers found that micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs), micron (100 nm - 5 mm) and nanometer (1 - 100 nm) scale particles and fibers produced by degradation and fragmentation of plastic waste in the environment, have become an important emerging environmental and food chain contaminant with uncertain consequences for human health. This review provides a comprehensive summary of recent findings from studies of potential toxicity and adverse health impacts of MNPs in terrestrial mammals, including studies in both in vitro cellular and in vivo mammalian models. Also reviewed here are recently released biomonitoring studies that have characterized the bioaccumulation, biodistribution, and excretion of MNPs in humans. The majority MNPs in the environment to which humans are most likely to be exposed, are of irregular shapes, varied sizes, and mixed compositions, and are defined as secondary MNPs. However, the MNPs used in most toxicity studies to date were commercially available primary MNPs of polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and other polymers. The emerging in vitro and in vivo evidence reviewed here suggests that MNP toxicity and bioactivity are largely determined by MNP particle physico-chemical characteristics, including size, shape, polymer type, and surface properties. For human exposure, MNPs have been identified in human blood, urine, feces, and placenta, which pose potential health risks. The evidence to date suggests that the mechanisms underlying MNP toxicity at the cellular level are primarily driven by oxidative stress. Nonetheless, large knowledge gaps in our understanding of MNP toxicity and the potential health impacts of MNP exposures still exist and much further study is needed to bridge those gaps. This includes human population exposure studies to determine the environmentally relevant MNP polymers and exposure concentrations and durations for toxicity studies, as well as toxicity studies employing environmentally relevant MNPs, with surface chemistries and other physico-chemical properties consistent with MNP particles in the environment. It is especially important to obtain comprehensive toxicological data for these MNPs to understand the range and extent of potential adverse impacts of microplastic pollutants on humans and other organisms.

Regulation of biomedical waste management in Kazakhstan during the pandemic in the context of best practices

The COVID-19 pandemic actualized questions about the proper management of biomedical waste while creating several regulatory challenges and requiring countries to look for an appropriate response. These issues have become particularly relevant for Kazakhstan, where waste management issues traditionally face inefficient legal regulation and are particularly acute. This study aims to answer the question of what regulatory problems Kazakhstan currently face in the area of proper biomedical waste management, and how existing foreign experience can help solve them. The present study highlights several pertinent challenges within the context of medical waste management. These include issues concerning the licencing activities associated with waste management, the absence of well-defined regional plans for the management of medical waste and the lack of effective strategies to address the proper handling and disposal of this specific category of waste. At the same time, there are reasons to say that the country requires additional technical and expert support in the field of medical waste management.

A multi-jurisdictional study on the quantification of COVID-19 household plastic waste in six Latin American countries

This study examines urban plastic waste generation using a citizen science approach in six Latin American countries during a global pandemic. The objectives are to quantify generation rates of masks, gloves, face shields, and plastic bags in urban households using online survey and perform a systematic cross-jurisdiction comparisons in these Latin American countries. The per capita total mask generation rates ranged from 0.179 to 0.915 mask cap-1 day-1. A negative correlation between the use of gloves and masks is observed. Using the average values, the approximate proportion of masks, gloves, shields, and single-use plastic bags was 34:5:1:84. We found that most studies overestimated face mask disposal rate in Latin America due to the simplifying assumptions on the number of masks discarded per person, masking prevalence rate, and average mask weight. Unlike other studies, end-of-life PPE quantities were directly counted and reported by the survey participants. Both of the conventional weight-based estimates and the proposed participatory survey are recommended in quantifying COVID waste. Participant' perception based on the Likert scale is generally consistent with the waste amount generated. Waste policy and regulation appear to be important in daily waste generation rate. The results highlight the importance of using measured data in waste estimates.

Mapping and visualizing of research output on waste management and green technology: A bibliometric review of literature

The transition to a circular economy (CE) and environmental protection highly depends on waste management (WM) and green technology (GT). The purpose of this study is to examine the past two decades of WM and GT research to identify the most significant advancements and potential future research areas. Bibliometrics content analysis and text mining were utilized to resolve the subsequent issues: Has WM and GT research developed over time in the CE industry? Does WM and GT research have a clearly defined purpose? How do you foresee the future of WM and GT research in the context of CE evolving? Consequently, 1149 journal articles from the Scopus database were used to create and evaluate bibliometric networks. Therefore, five significant CE-related issues requiring additional research were identified: The first category is bio-based WM, followed by CE transition, GT, ecological impacts, municipal solid WM and lifecycle assessment, and finally, bio-based WM. Future research topics and a tool for the CE transition may be impacted by the investigation of inclusive WM systems, GT practices and their defining highlight patterns (which aim to minimalize waste generation). Future research goals include reducing waste and implementing WM into the CE framework.

A data-driven optimization model to response to COVID-19 pandemic: a case study

COVID-19 is a highly prevalent disease that has led to numerous predicaments for healthcare systems worldwide. Owing to the significant influx of patients and limited resources of health services, there have been several limitations associated with patients' hospitalization. These limitations can cause an increment in the COVID-19-related mortality due to the lack of appropriate medical services. They can also elevate the risk of infection in the rest of the population. The present study aims to investigate a two-phase approach to designing a supply chain network for hospitalizing patients in the existing and temporary hospitals, efficiently distributing medications and medical items needed by patients, and managing the waste created in hospitals. Since the number of future patients is uncertain, in the first phase, trained Artificial Neural Networks with historical data forecast the number of patients in future periods and generate scenarios. Through the use of the K-Means method, these scenarios are reduced. In the second phase, a multi-objective, multi-period, data-driven two-stage stochastic programming is developed using the acquired scenarios in the previous phase concerning the uncertainty and disruption in facilities. The objectives of the proposed model include maximizing the minimum allocation-to-demand ratio, minimizing the total risk of disease spread, and minimizing the total transportation time. Furthermore, a real case study is investigated in Tehran, the capital of Iran. The results showed that the areas with the highest population density and no facilities near them have been selected for the location of temporary facilities. Among temporary facilities, temporary hospitals can allocate up to 2.6% of the total demand, which puts pressure on the existing hospitals to be removed. Furthermore, the results indicated that the allocation-to-demand ratio can remain at an ideal level when disruptions occur by considering temporary facilities. Our analyses focus on: (1) Examining demand forecasting error and generated scenarios in the first phase, (2) exploring the impact of demand parameters on the allocation-to-demand ratio, total time and total risk, (3) investigating the strategy of utilizing temporary hospitals to address sudden changes in demand, (4) evaluating the effect of disruption to facilities on the supply chain network.

Advancement of Nonwoven Fabrics in Personal Protective Equipment

While nonwoven fabrics have existed for several decades, their usage in personal protective equipment (PPE) has been met with a rapid surge of demands, in part due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. This review aims to critically examine the current state of nonwoven PPE fabrics by exploring (i) the material constituents and processing steps to produce fibers and bond them, and (ii) how each fabric layer is integrated into a textile, and how the assembled textiles are used as PPE. Firstly, filament fibers are manufactured via dry, wet, and polymer-laid fiber spinning methods. Then the fibers are bonded via chemical, thermal, and mechanical means. Emergent nonwoven processes such as electrospinning and centrifugal spinning to produce unique ultrafine nanofibers are discussed. Nonwoven PPE applications are categorized as filters, medical usage, and protective garments. The role of each nonwoven layer, its role, and textile integration are discussed. Finally, the challenges stemming from the single-use nature of nonwoven PPEs are discussed, especially in the context of growing concerns over sustainability. Then, emerging solutions to address sustainability issues with material and processing innovations are explored.

Circular economy of medical waste: novel intelligent medical waste management framework based on extension linear Diophantine fuzzy FDOSM and neural network approach

Environmental pollution has been a major concern for researchers and policymakers. A number of studies have been conducted to enquire the causes of environmental pollution which suggested numerous policies and techniques as remedial measures. One such major source of environmental pollution, as reported by previous studies, has been the garbage resulting from disposed hospital wastes. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted into mass generation of medical waste which seems to have further deteriorated the issue of environmental pollution. This necessitates active attention from both the researchers and policymakers for effective management of medical waste to prevent the harm to environment and human health. The issue of medical waste management is more important for countries lacking sophisticated medical infrastructure. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to propose a novel application for identification and classification of 10 hospitals in Iraq which generated more medical waste during the COVID-19 pandemic than others in order to address the issue more effectively. We used the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method to this end. We integrated MCDM with other techniques including the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), linear Diophantine fuzzy set decision by opinion score method (LDFN-FDOSM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) analysis to generate more robust results. We classified medical waste into five categories, i.e., general waste, sharp waste, pharmaceutical waste, infectious waste, and pathological waste. We consulted 313 experts to help in identifying the best and the worst medical waste management technique within the perspectives of circular economy using the neural network approach. The findings revealed that incineration technique, microwave technique, pyrolysis technique, autoclave chemical technique, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, dry heat, ozone, and ultraviolet light were the most effective methods to dispose of medical waste during the pandemic. Additionally, ozone was identified as the most suitable technique among all to serve the purpose of circular economy of medical waste. We conclude by discussing the practical implications to guide governments and policy makers to benefit from the circular economy of medical waste to turn pollutant hospitals into sustainable ones.

Carbon footprint of atrial fibrillation catheter ablation

AIMS

Climate change represents the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Health care system is itself a large contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In cardiology, atrial fibrillation (AF) catheter ablation is an increasing activity using numerous non-reusable materials that could contribute to GHG emission. Determining a detailed carbon footprint analysis of an AF catheter ablation procedure allows the identification of the main polluting sources that give opportunities for reduction of environmental impact. To assess the carbon footprint of AF catheter ablation procedure. To determine priority actions to decrease pollution.

METHODS AND RESULTS

An eco-audit method used to predict the GHG emission of an AF catheter ablation procedure was investigated. Two workstations were considered including surgery and anaesthesia. In the operating room, every waste produced by single-use medical devices, pharmaceutical drugs, and energy consumption during intervention were evaluated. All analyses were limited to the operating room. Thirty procedures were analysed over a period of 8 weeks: 18 pulmonary veins isolation RF ablations, 7 complex RF procedures including PVI, roof and mitral isthmus lines, ethanol infusion of the Marshall vein and cavo tricuspid isthmus line, and 5 pulmonary vein isolation with cryoballoon. The mean emission during AF catheter ablation procedures was 76.9 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-e). The operating field accounted for 75.4% of the carbon footprint, while only 24.6% for the anaesthesia workstation. On one hand, material production and manufacturing were the most polluting phases of product life cycle which, respectively, represented 71.3% (54.8 kg of CO2-e) and 17.0% (13.1 kg of CO2-e) of total pollution. On the other hand, transport contributed in 10.6% (8.1 kg of CO2-e), while product use resulted in 1.1% (0.9 kg of CO2-e) of GHG production. Electrophysiology catheters were demonstrated to be the main contributors of environmental impact with 29.9 kg of CO2-e (i.e. 38.8%). Three dimensional mapping system and electrocardiogram patches were accounting for 6.8 kg of CO2-e (i.e. 8.8% of total).

CONCLUSION

AF catheter ablation involves a mean of 76.9 kg of CO2-e. With an estimated 600 000 annual worldwide procedures, the environmental impact of AF catheter ablation activity is estimated equal to 125 tons of CO2 emission each day. It represents an equivalent of 700 000 km of car ride every day. Electrophysiology catheters and patches are the main contributors of the carbon footprint. The focus must be on reducing, reusing, and recycling these items to limit the impact of AF ablation on the environment. A road map of steps to implement in different time frames is proposed.

Mega-scale desalination efficacy (Reverse Osmosis, Electrodialysis, Membrane Distillation, MED, MSF) during COVID-19: Evidence from salinity, pretreatment methods, temperature of operation

The unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic heavily polluted water bodies whereas the presence of SARS-CoV-2, even in treated wastewater in every corner of the world is reported. The main aim of the present study is to show the effectiveness and feasibility of some well-known desalination technologies which are reverse osmosis (RO), Electrodialysis (ED), Membrane Distillation (MD), multi effect distillation (MED), and multi stage flashing (MSF) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Systems' effectiveness against the novel coronavirus based on three parameters of nasopharynx/nasal saline-irrigation, temperature of operation and pretreatment methods are evaluated. First, based on previous clinical studies, it showed that using saline solution (hypertonic saline >0.9% concentration) for gargling/irrigating of nasal/nasopharynx/throat results in reducing and replication of the viral in patients, subsequently the feed water of desalination plants which has concentration higher than 3.5% (35000ppm) is preventive against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Second, the temperature operation of thermally-driven desalination; MSF and MED (70-120°C) and MD (55-85°C) is high enough to inhibit the contamination of plant structure and viral survival in feed water. The third factor is utilizing various pretreatment process such as chlorination, filtration, thermal/precipitation softening, ultrafiltration (mostly for RO, but also for MD, MED and MSF), which are powerful treatment methods against biologically-contaminated feed water particularly the SARS-CoV-2. Eventually, it can be concluded that large-scale desalination plants during COVID-19 and similar situation are completely reliable for providing safe drinking water.

Analysis of COVID-19 waste management in Vietnam and recommendations to adapt to the 'new normal' period

Amid the 4th wave of COVID-19, Vietnam reopened its economy, which placed extra burdens on the COVID-19 waste management system. This study analyzed existing issues and recommended adaptations to secure appropriate management of COVID-19 waste under the 'new normal' pandemic period. Results showed changes in COVID-19 waste characteristics (e.g., rapid rise in waste generation, lower percentage of plastic) and multiple other issues (e.g., presence of COVID-19 waste in municipal waste, lack of temporary storage sites and local treatment capacity), along with greater waste-handling responsibilities placed on authorities and higher infection risks. To adapt to the 'new normal', introduction of separate handling routes and collaboration in waste treatment were recommended. Employing the network of pharmacies used for vaccination would require COVID-19 waste collection from scattered, small-scale sources as part of the waste management solution. Also, following the 4R initiatives (reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery) could help ease the burden on the country's waste system and provide additional opportunities to move towards a circular economy in the post-acute COVID-19 era. The findings should contribute to a safer co-existence with the virus through appropriate waste management in Vietnam and could be used to tackle waste problems in other developing countries.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10163-022-01563-x.

Separation of plastic wastes using froth flotation - An overview

Despite various initiatives and efforts, plastic solid waste (PSW) has become a major global problem due to decades of relentless use of plastics. Since non-biodegradable plastics can persist in the environment for hundreds of years, threatening animal and human life, discarding them into the environment is not a viable option. Plastic recycling is a critical research area that requires urgent attention since less than 10% of the seven billion tons of globally generated plastic waste has been recycled so far. With recent technological developments, it is now possible to recycle many types of PSW using a variety of methods. This review provides an overview of the froth flotation technology that is currently being researched for PSW recycling. Fundamental working principles, the current state of the development, and limitations of this technique are reviewed. It is suggested that froth flotation with continuous development has tremendous potential to result in a more efficient and environmentally friendly approach to PSW recycling.

Circular economy strategy and waste management: a bibliometric analysis in its contribution to sustainable development, toward a post-COVID-19 era

A descriptive analysis of 416 documents was performed using bibliometric techniques, in order to gather existing knowledge in circular economy focusing on waste management (2007-2020). The results of this study indicate that annual scientific production increased 94% in the last 5 years, highlighting the countries of Italy, Spain, the UK, China, Brazil, and India. Between the most cited documents stand out those related to calorific value of municipal solid waste and waste to energy technologies for achieving circular economy systems. The conceptual analysis indicates strong linkage between circular economy and sustainable production, waste management, and recycling. Emerging research trends evolved from processes and industry-oriented approach (2017) toward waste management, recycling, and circular economy (2019) and sustainable development and urban solid waste (2020). The analysis reveals five dominant circular economy and waste research themes: (1) greenhouse gases; (2) circular economy, waste management, and recycling; (3) life cycle; (4) waste treatment; and (5) anaerobic digestion and recovery; trends research are related to policy interventions, and enforcement of authorities' regulations to foster circular economy transition, increase the use of practices of recycling and reusing, as well as discourage a growing consumption culture. Results found denote the challenge represented by the implementation of comprehensive policies in circular economy. The above being a key alternative for green recovery in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Plastic particles in medicine: A systematic review of exposure and effects to human health

Single-use plastics (SUPs) have become an essential constituent of our daily life. It is being exploited in numerous pharmaceutical and healthcare applications. Despite their advantages and widespread use in the pharma and medical sectors, the potential clinical problems of plastics, especially the release of micro-nanoplastics (MNPs) and additives from medical plastics (e.g. bags, containers, and administrative sets) and sorption of drugs remain understudied. Certainly, the MNPs are multifaceted stressors that cause detrimental effects to the ecosystem and human health. The origin and persistence of MNPs in pharmaceutical products, their administration to humans, endurance and possible health implication, translocation, and excretion have not been reviewed in detail. The prime focus of this article is to conduct a systematic review on the leaching of MNPs and additives from pharmaceutical containers/administrative sets and their interaction with the pharmaceutical constituents. This review also explores the primary and secondary routes of MNPs entry from healthcare plastic products and their potential health hazards to humans. Furthermore, the fate of plastic waste generated in hospitals, their disposal, and associated MNPs release to the environment, along with preventive, and alternative measures are discussed herein.

Uncontrolled Disposal of Used Masks Resulting in Release of Microplastics and Co-Pollutants into Environment

The global panic caused by COVID-19 has continued to increase people’s demand for masks. However, due to inadequate management and disposal practice, these masks have, unfortunately, entered the environment and release a large amount of microplastics (MPs), posing a serious threat to the environment and human health. Understanding the occurrence of mask waste in various environments, release of mask-origin MPs, and related environmental risk is essential to mask-waste management in current and future epidemic prevention and control. This paper focuses on the global distribution of mask waste, the potential release of waste-origin MPs, and the impact on the environment. Specifically, the physical and chemical properties of polypropylene (the most common plastic material in a mask), which show a high adsorption capacity for heavy metals and organic pollutants and play a role as a support for microbial growth, were extensively reported. In addition, several important issues that need to be resolved are raised, which offers a direction for future research. This review focuses on the essentiality of handling masks to avoid potential environmental issues.

Plastic accumulation during COVID-19: call for another pandemic; bioplastic a step towards this challenge?

Plastic pollution has become a serious transboundary challenge to nature and human health, with estimation of reports published - predicting a twofold increase in plastic waste by 2030. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the excessive use of single-use plastics (including face masks, gloves and personal protective equipment) would possibly exacerbate such forecasts. The transition towards eco-friendly alternatives like bio-based plastics and new emerging sustainable technologies would be vital to deal with future pandemics, even though the use or consumption of plastics has greatly enhanced our quality of life; it is however critical to move towards bioplastics. We cannot deny the fact that bioplastics have some challenges and shortcomings, but still, it is an ideal option for opt. The circular economy is the need of the hour for waste management. Along with all these practices, individual accountability, corporate intervention and government policy are also needed to prevent us from moving from one crisis to the next. Only through cumulative efforts, we will be able to cope up with this problem. This article collected scattered information and data about accumulation of plastic during COVID-19 worldwide. Additionally, this paper illustrates the substitution of petroleum-based plastics with bio-based plastics. Different aspects are discussed, ranging from advantages to challenges in the way of bioplastics.

Environmental impact of increased soap consumption during COVID-19 pandemic: Biodegradable soap production and sustainable packaging

A year into the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the role of washing hands with soap and hand disinfectants is unavoidable as a primary way to control the infection spread in communities and healthcare facilities. The extraordinary surge in demand for handwashing products has led to environmental concerns. Since soaps are complex mixtures of toxic and persistent active ingredients, the prudent option is to promote eco-friendly replacements for the current products. On the other hand, with the increase in soap packaging waste production, soap packaging waste management and recycling become essential to reduce environmental impact. This systematic review aimed to collect some recent methods for identifying biodegradable and sustainable raw materials to produce and package cleaning agents, especially soap.

Effectiveness of solar water disinfection in the era of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic for contaminated water/wastewater treatment considering UV effect and temperature

Long is the way and hard, that out of COVID-19 leads up to light. The virus is highly contagious and spread rapidly and the number of infections increases exponentially. The colossal number of infections and presence of the novel coronavirus RNA in human wastes (e.g. Excreta/urine) even after the patients recovered and the RT-PCR tests were negative, results in massive load of the viral in water environments. Numerous studies reported the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater samples. The risk of contaminating water bodies in the regions which suffer from the lack of proper sanitation system and wastewater treatment plants (mostly in developing countries) is higher. Since solar water disinfection (SODIS) is usually used by people in developing countries, there is a concern about using this method during the pandemic. Because the SARS-CoV-2 can be eliminated by high temperature (>56 °C) and UVC wavelength (100-280 nm) while SODIS systems mainly work at lower temperature (<45 °C) and use the available UVA (315-400 nm). Thus, during a situation like the ongoing pandemic using SODIS method for wastewater treatment (or providing drinking water) is not a reliable method. It should be reminded that the main aim of the present study is not just to give insights about the possibilities and risks of using SODIS during the ongoing pandemic but it has broader prospect for any future outbreak/pandemic that results in biological contamination of water bodies. Nevertheless, some experimental studies seem to be necessary by all researchers under conditions similar to developing countries.

Key ingredients and recycling strategy of personal protective equipment (PPE): Towards sustainable solution for the COVID-19 like pandemics

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the complications of plastic trash management and disposal. The current situation of living in fear of transmission of the COVID-19 virus has further transformed our behavioural models, such as regularly using personal protective equipment (PPE) kits and single-use applications for day to day needs etc. It has been estimated that with the passage of the coronavirus epidemic every month, there is expected use of 200 billion pieces of single-use facemasks and gloves. PPE are well established now as life-saving items for medicinal specialists to stay safe through the COVID-19 pandemic. Different processes such as glycolysis, hydrogenation, aminolysis, hydrolysis, pyrolysis, and gasification are now working on finding advanced technologies to transfer waste PPE into value-added products. Here, in this article, we have discussed the recycling strategies of PPE, important components (such as medical gloves, gowns, masks & respirators and other face and eye protection) and the raw materials used in PPE kits. Further, the value addition methods to recycling the PPE kits, chemical & apparatus used in recycling and recycling components into value-added products. Finally, the biorenewable materials in PPE for textiles components have been discussed along with concluded remarks.

Direct and indirect effects of SARS-CoV-2 on wastewater treatment

The novel SARS-CoV-2 is expanding internationally. While the current focus is on limiting its transmission from direct contact with infected patients and surfaces during the pandemic, the secondary transmission potential via sewage should not be underestimated, especially in low-income and developing countries with weak wastewater treatment technologies. Recent studies have indicated SARS-CoV-2 positivity also be detected in the feces of patients. Therefore, the risk of transmission and infection can be increased into sewage by the fecal-oral way, mainly in some parts of the globe with a high amount of open defecation. This review collected scattered data and recent studies about the direct and indirect effects of coronavirus in the water cycle. The direct impacts of COVID-19 on wastewater are related to the presence of the coronavirus and suitable viral removal methods in different phases of treatment in wastewater treatment plants. The indirect effects of COVID-19 on wastewater are related to the overuse of cleaning and disinfecting products to protect against viral infection and the overuse of certain drugs to protect against virus or novel mental problems and panic to COVID-19 and consequently their presence in wastewater. This unexpected situation leads to changes in the quality of wastewater and brings adverse and harmful effects for the human, aquatic organisms, and the environment. Therefore, applying effective wastewater treatment technologies with low toxic by-products in wastewater treatment plants will be helpful to prevent the increasing occurrence of these extra contaminants in the environment.