Coronavirus Environmental Impact – It’s NOT Good

The current global COVID-19 pandemic is causing NEGATIVE environmental issues that outweigh the temporarily reduced carbon emissions. These negative impacts include:

• increase of medical waste leaching into our water
• increase in household waste due to increases in take out and suspended recycling programs
• issues with protected wildlife more susceptible to poaching
• important scientific studies are being disrupted
• Tobacco industry is actually seeing a boom in sales
• protected wildlife is in danger

There is much debate going on about the environmental impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Many people talk about a silver lining of this horrible disease; wildlife thriving, improved air quality, ozone layer repairing.

Recently debunked myths going around Twitter include the photos of dolphins in Sardinia claiming to be the canals in Venice. Also, claims that the water in Venice is cleaner are just not true. The water is simply clearer because of the decrease in boat traffic that usually drive through the waters and stir up sediment.

New studies show that the hole in the ozone layer has repaired – this is true. But this reversal of ozone depletion is attributed the Montreal Protocol which was signed by 197 countries in 1987 to minimize the use of harmful substances. This process takes a long time and has been working for years already. The recent reduced emissions due to our current global pandemic did not heal the ozone layer as many tweets and blogs report.

It is true that CO2 emissions have dropped up to 20% in places with extreme lock down like Italian cities. In Asia the carbon emissions have reduced up to 25%. This is good news but this is temporary. When the lock downs are over and countries have to make up for the economic disaster that has happened in the wake of COVID-19, the emissions will be back to their normal if not elevated levels.

The loss of life and suffering that has occurred due to the coronavirus is real. These silver linings maybe partially true but they are temporary and it would be premature to celebrate them.

There are other real adverse impacts of the changes that have happened due to the coronavirus global pandemic. Keep reading to learn more.

Protected Wildlife Is In Danger From Poaching

Perhaps some wildlife will be positively impacted by the coronavirus because the rules and regulations about wildlife trafficking are under global scrutiny. Bans are now in place to prevent the consumption of wild animal meat. The coronavirus is said to have started at a fish market in Wuhan China. This particular market sold live and dead animals for human consumption – including fish, bats, badgers and pangolins.

Pangolins are a type of anteater which are on the verge of extinction. The scales of a pangolin are traditionally used in Chinese medicine and this mammal is also used for spiritual purposes. A ban on sales of pangolin will either prevent their extinction or increase their areas of poaching.

Bu not all animals facing extinction are going to benefit from the spill over effects of the new coronavirus. Many places in Africa rely on the travel industry to pay the security guards to who protect the animals from poachers.

Game parks all over Africa have highly specialized anti poaching security to protect their horned game. The rhinoceros for example, whose biggest threat of extinction is from poaching. There is a large black market in Vietnam for rhino horn which is believed to have medicinal uses and is largely bought as a symbol of wealth.

Elephants in African game parks are also the target to poaching. Despite the ban on international trade of ivory, there is still a very hot market on African elephant tusks and thousands of elephant are killed every year just to remove their tusks. The anti poaching organizations are extremely active in protecting elephants.

The lost tourism economy in Congo, Uganda and Rwanda could expose the world’s only population of mountain gorillas to extinction. These gorillas are highly susceptible to catching virus’ from humans. Without proper protection, these gorillas could become infected with coronavirus or be an easier target for the still present gorilla poachers. Rwanda is doing everything in their power to protect their small gorilla population during this outbreak.

Many of the security guards who protect these rhinoceros, elephants and gorillas were once poachers themselves. There is a risk that with the loss of tourism dollars, these people would switch back to poaching in order to survive during this tough financial time.

Elephants in Thailand are facing the threat of starvation because of the lack of tourism. Caretakers of Thailand’s 4,000 captive elephants are not able to afford to feed them 400lbs of food each day.

Today they announced a positive test for COVID-19 in a tiger at the Bronx zoo in the USA. The tiger apparently got the virus from an asymptomatic human. If tigers at a zoo can contract this virus, what would happen if tigers or other endangered cats in the wild catch it.

Helpful Scientific Studies Have Been Interrupted Or Destroyed

There is an incredible amount of ongoing scientific research used in conservation and environmentally progressive projects that are being disrupted with the coronavirus pandemic. An interruption in some of these projects may cause years of work and data collection to go down the drain.

Scientists who are studying the loss of habitat with the California fires are not able to get this third year of data because they are asked to stay home. This is a critical time to collect data on the birds of the burned forests to complete their data in order to make recommendations.

There are some islands that have been closed off to the public in order for the flaura and fauna to be restored. When humans first arrived on some of these islands they brought rats and other rodents that wreaked havoc on the local fauna. Conservation efforts have been working for years to restore the island but with a lack of people on the island to protect it, years of work is being undone.

Disposal of Medical Waste Is An Environmental Disaster

All over the world, hospitals are trying to keep up with the extra load of patients with COVID-19. This extra load is causing an increase in medical waste. Hospitals in Wuhan produced 4 times more waste per day on average during their outbreak.

Many hospitals in first world countries have methods of safely disposing of medical waste products. The waste is sterilized and carefully transported to landfills in a regulated manner.

Not all hospitals have the resources to dispose of medical waste properly, some even incinerate waste. Incineration is not a good option because the process produces carcinogens with negative health effects.

Much of the hazardous single use plastics from hospitals is found in oceans and waterways around the world. Autopsies on beached whales have shown surgical gloves as reason for their deaths.

Single use plastics and packaging from medical waste is just part of the problem. Hazardous waste generated from the pharmaceutical industry is growing at a rate of 6% per year. Pharmaceuticals are showing up in rivers, lakes and drinking water.

This contaminated water is having adverse effects on wildlife. A study from 2014 shows that the population of fish examined has decreased significantly because of traces of contraceptive in the water. They found that in one particular habitate, 75% of the fish and amphibians had been lost. It was found that the population of starlings fed less often because of their exposure to antidepressants.

The water contamination is coming from drugs that are given to humans and animals. They found that the concentration of the pharmaceuticals is entering the environment mainly from being excreted from our bodies (88%). One study at the University of Gothenburg found that the concentration of drugs in a person’s blood is lower than the concentration in their excrement.

With the increased medical waste due to coronavirus, more toxic chemicals are being used to disinfect the sewage treatment plants in China and elsewhere. These chemicals (mostly chorline) add to the already long list of adverse effects this pandemic is having on our environment.

This situation of pharmaceutical water contamination is worse in areas where the wastewater is not treated like parts of Africa and Asia.

Dumping drugs down the drain or toilets accounts for another 10% of contaminated water from medical waste. And 2% is from the manufacturing process.

WHO has declared AMR (antimicrobial resistance) is becoming a threat to public health causing the creation of superbugs (resistant to antibiotics). Although the coronavirus is not directly treated with antibiotics, the use of them has increased to treat bacterial co-infections that exist among patients.

Domestic Violence On The Rise

With the forced time off from work unpaid that many people are experiencing the stress of life has increased. Increased home lives have seen an increase in violence against women and children at their homes.

This pandemic highlights the global inequality that exists. Coronavirus hits the poorest first because they often live in the most polluted cities. Furthermore, they often don’t have health care.

Toilet Paper Shortage Leads To Clogged Pipes And Deforestation

Toilet paper has been a hot topic for that past few months. Although there should be no shortage of toilet paper, it is selling out faster than they can produce it because people are stockpiling. If the demand doesn’t correct itself, there will be an adverse effect on Canada’s boreal forests.

The average American uses 3 rolls of plush toilet paper a week. Many of the big brand names of toilet paper (including Charmin and Cottenelle) do not have any recycled content or alternative products in them. This toilet paper, is coming from virgin forest. So an increase of toilet paper production equals an increast of deforestation.

On the flip side, if there is a shortage of toilet paper and the stockpiles are gone, people might start flushing other non dissolvable alteratives down the toilet. This will surely block sewers and cause more waste in repairs and construction.

Increase of Household Garbage

China has witnessed an increase of household garbage. While people stay home they have time to shop online. Each ordered package contains more waste (possibly recycling). The tendency to panic buy causes an increase of resources to be used to produce, package, deliver and soon enough dispose of the products.

Some cities have halted their recycling programs to decrease the risk of spreading COVID-19 in recycling centers. People are told to save thir recycling for when these services start up again but the temptation to throw away as garbage is high.

Take out orders also increased in China during their lock down and adding an increase to the garbage produced.

People have been trained for years to bring their own bags to the grocery store. Now many stores are refusing to allow the cloth bags on their checkout belts. The zero waste community has been working so hard on removing packaging from commonly purchased food items. Many package free stores are now closed or have had to change their model to allow the use of a refundable container cleaned at the store.

Bans on single use plastics have reverted even though single use plastics can still harbor viruses and bacteria.

Starbucks and other coffee shops now deliver coffee in single use cups only. This is a huge step back for the fight against plastics and it is not a sustainable way to live.

Tobacco Industry Is Booming

This one might come as a surprise: Sales of tobacco have increased in the past month. This is especially surprising because sales were slowly declining due to the increased number of people switching to vaping.

Big Tobacco (term used for the five giant tobacco companies) has taken a hit over the recent past because of vaping. But shares of the British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco have gone up since the beginning of this pandemic.

This could possibly be due to people stockpiling because of the threat of them being banned. Or it could be because of increased anxiety which causes smokers to want to smoke.

WHO (World Health Organization) reports that 8 million people die each year because they smoke. If this doesn’t scare smokers, will the thread of getting the coronavirus?

There is a push for the tobacco industry to stop producing, marketing and selling tobacco immediately. This came yesterday morning from an international group of health experts specializing in respiratory health. They are very concerned about the 1.3 billion people worldwide that smoke.

A ban on tobacco was made in South Africa but there is concern that will cause people to break their lock down rules to go out of their neighbourhoods to find black market cigarettes.

And what does a boom in tobacco mean for the environment? The production of tobacco requires natural resources, pollutes the waterways and air. The area taken in land mass globally is 4 million hectares and growing the plants require more than 22 billion tonnes of water giving it a very high water footprint. Not to mention the 2.6 billion kg of carbon dioxide and 5.2 billion kg of methane exhaling globally. Cigarette butts are a huge problem in waterways, causing problems with fish, killing pets, causing forest fires… the list goes on.

And the switch to vaping has it’s own issues. Disposing of e-cigarettes is problematic. There is a battery to be recycled, heavy metals that leach, disposable cartridges that have toxic chemicals in them. The adverse health effects are nothing to scuff at either. Popcorn lungs, possible explosion while in your mouth, toxic chemical ingestion. A new lung disease called EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury). This is a lung inflammation from the accumulation of oil or white blood cells in the lungs.

There is really no good reason to smoke!

As the race to find a vaccine for coronavirus continues, British American Tobacco giving it a go. They are growing plants in their labs that are closely related to tobacco that they believe can be used as a vaccine. They are creating 3 million doses of the vaccine that is being testing on animals right now. If these tests do not pass, the 3 million doses will go to waste.

The Real Silver Lining

All is not lost. This global pandemic is very bad in many ways. It is turning our world upside down. I’m sorry this post is a bit of a downer.

From what I can see, the real silver lining is the way people are coming together in this time of crisis. I am so amazed at the generosity I’ve seen within my community to support people in isolation, show appreciation for those that are working hard in our community’s essential services and people who have stepped up to offer solutions that could make real lasting changes for us and the environment. Hopefully our governments will agree.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash