Without plastics and polymers, we might not have been able to face COVID. But it is time to start worrying about the environment
As Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora announced the dates for the Bihar Assembly elections, he also detailed the precautions being taken to conduct them. The fact is that the entire electoral process is a crowded one, and in a densely populated State like Bihar, almost guaranteed to be so, no matter what rules and regulations are put in place. So the Election Commission is deploying millions of masks and gloves and thousands of litres of hand sanitiser across booths to protect voters, booth officials and security personnel. Given that thousands of voters will touch every voting machine, each will be provided with a single disposable glove. But while the health and safety of our voters is paramount, there is another concern. That is the mountains of trash that will be generated as a result of these precautions. Given that several State Governments had declared a war on single-use plastics over the past few years, it is especially ironic that single-use plastic gloves will be needed to keep democracy alive. In fact, it is one of the side effects of the pandemic that huge volumes of non-recyclable, non-biodegradable trash have been generated.
There is little doubt that COVID warriors in intensive care wards need plastic personal protective equipment. Even surgical masks worn by millions are for the large part non-biodegradable. As more cities get back to work across the world and humanity learns to live with the virus and new protocols, both the Government and citizens must ponder over medical waste management and disposal. One immediate change that millions can adopt is to move to using washable cloth masks instead of polymer-based masks. While such polymer masks will be essential in hospital wards, in regular daily use cloth masks are quite effective at protecting others and more comfortable as well. Protocols for the reuse of protective kits and other plastic equipment should also be put in place, whether that involves washing or ultraviolet sanitisation. We must look at newer incineration technologies. We might be coming to terms with the pandemic, even if we have paid a terrible price in deaths and with the economy. However, we should not make the environmental costs so dramatic as well. We will be undoing all that we have attempted to reset so far.