The United Nations health agency has counted the equipment shipped around the world to respond to the pandemic. The result is additional pollution, in particular plastic, which is difficult to contain.
The mountain of medical waste linked to Covid-19 continues to grow. What arouse the concern of the World Health Organization (WHO) for health and the environment. In a new report published on Tuesday, the institution examines the approximately 87,000 tonnes of personal protective equipment sent between March 2020 and November 2021 around the world by the United Nations to help countries, in particular the most disadvantaged. , to deal with the pandemic.
Result: more than 140 million test kits, likely to generate 2,600 tonnes of non-infectious waste (mainly plastic) and 731,000 liters of chemical waste (the equivalent of a third of an Olympic swimming pool) have been sent. Around 97% of the plastic waste from the tests was incinerated.
As for the 8 billion doses of vaccine administered worldwide, they produced 144,000 tonnes of additional waste in the form of syringes, needles and safety boxes.
Difficult-to-manage waste
And yet, the tens of thousands of tons of medical waste referred to in the WHO report represent only a small fraction of the global volume of waste, the study not taking into account the equipment that was not sent. through the UN.
According to a recent study deciphered by Release, 11 million tons of additional waste have been produced worldwide since the start of the pandemic, including 34,000 tons dumped directly into the ocean. The effects on marine fauna are increasingly visible. Masks have been found clinging to fish and crabs, or even in the stomach of a dead penguin in Brazil. Small fish suffocate when entering the latex gloves.
This additional medical waste, which is a result of the pandemic response, is straining waste management systems around the world.
Especially since according to the WHO report, three out of ten healthcare establishments in the world do not have waste sorting systems. In less developed countries, less than one in three health facilities has a basic medical waste management service.
too many gloves
To reduce waste, the World Health Organization suggests several solutions. It proposes to create smaller and more sustainable packaging and to generally manufacture equipment from renewable materials. Sending medical waste to landfills should be the last resort, the document says.
The report also calls for the development of masks that can be used multiple times or can be composted. In France, the recycling of these protections is developing timidly on a local scale.
Finally, the WHO insists in particular on gloves which, in the context of the fight against the pandemic, constitute in terms of volume the largest proportion of waste from personal protective equipment purchased through the UN. Although the UN agency does not recommend them for administering vaccines, “this seems to be a common practice”observes the report.