The world is throwing away 3 million face masks every minute

Single-use masks have been the emblems of the pandemic era. Since the very first lockdowns of 2020, these plastic-based coverings have also been an environmental disaster in the making. 

The need to stem the tide of the pandemic with masks was critical, but the rapid adoption of face masks also means their waste can now be found everywhere. The global population uses an estimated 129 billion face masks every month, or roughly 3 million masks per minute. Discarded masks have seeped into every corner of our lives, from city sidewalks to solemn niches of the internet. They've washed up on the shores of Hong Kong's deserted Soko Islands and cloaked octopi off the coast of France. 

Scientists and environmental advocates expressed alarm about this tsunami of waste from the jump. They foresaw the dire ecological ramifications of our mask waste