How Covid-19 Has Affected the Environment and What Do We Do About It?
These days Coivd-19 news is all over the TV as the coronavirus had hit the world severely. It made a huge impact on the environment and our lives to the point that the everyday lives are completely different from what they were some 9 months ago.
How did it affect our environment and what can we do about it? Let’s define the positive and the negative effects of the virus and see what we can learn from the whole thing.
The Negative Effects
Covid-19 symptoms are relatively easy to spot once you get infected, but the environmental effects stay somehow hidden in the middle of the fight against the virus.
The global pandemic had created so many negative effects on our environment and I have decided to list the two biggest ones. I was not aware of such a problem until I started researching and collecting data.
While the virus poses a great threat to our lives, it actually damages our environment at the same time.
Increased Biomedical Waste
Just for the sake of statistics, Wuhan city in China produces more than 240 metric tons of medical waste on a daily basis, which is 190 metric tons more than it is during normal times. Taking into consideration that the pandemic started in February 2020, we can conclude that this is a huge amount of waste that our environment will suffer from.
Other Asian cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi and Bangkok also experience the increased production of medical waste, which can lead to hazardous aftermaths. If not managed properly, it can provoke another catastrophe.
The disposal of protective equipment such as gloves and masks is also increased. However, the bigger problem is the improper handling of this waste as it contains infectious particles, which means it shouldn’t be dumped in open/public places.
The improper handling of such waste leads to the spreading of the disease and infection and creates a whole other level of problems. Therefore, biomedical waste can create a chain reaction with a set of new problems that can ruin the environment and society even more.
Increased Household Waste
As pandemic introduced the lockdown in many countries, many people stayed at home and enjoyed the online shopping and food delivery service. This led to the increased household waste due to shipping and food packages that are left after the order was delivered.
It means that it takes more time for waste distribution and sorting. Luckily, the recycling programs help with this problem and contribute at least a little bit when it comes to saving the environment.
Larger Amount of Disinfectants in Rivers
Washing your hands with disinfectant gel several times a day became a normal everyday thing now. But, this also leads to more pollution in the wastewater, which can further destroy the soil and contaminate the drinking water
Countries like Bangladesh have problems with wastewaters that are contaminated with chlorine. These wastewaters flow into the rivers without pretreatment which can create a disaster in the future times.
The Positive Effects
The global pandemic has brought a few good things for our environment as well. Not that we definitely want to have the spread of the pandemic, but it actually made some unique and positive impacts.
There are three big positive things that Covid-19 pandemic has brought. According to the UK’s based climate website Carbon Brief, the Covid-19 crisis could cut down 1,600 metric tons of CO2 emission.
Improved Air Quality
Due to the lockdown and restrictive social measures that were introduced, people cannot drive vehicles and spend time outside. This directly improved the quality of air as the GHG emissions dropped down significantly. Around 50% of N2O reduction came from the shutdown of China’s factories. The satellite data show that the NO2 levels have drastically declined in South Asia during the period between March 15th and April 30th.
Reduced Water Pollution
Though the use of disinfectants potentially increases the pollution in the rivers, the temporal shut down of the industries reduce the water pollution at the same time.
In India, river Ganga has experienced an improvement in the water quality to the point that it met the national water drinking quality standard. Therefore, the decreased industry and manufacturing process have a huge and positive impact on the water quality.
We can conclude that water pollution can be eliminated by using different manufacturing processes that are less invasive and toxic as well as relying on the sustainability concept.
Reduced Noise Pollution
Noise pollution is a serious threat not only to people but also to the wildlife that experiences a lot of problems because of it. As the lockdown was introduced in many countries, this meant that you could go anywhere. It meant that the use of cars was decreased, which meant that the noise pollution was decreased at the same time. Instead of an average 60 dB noise pollution, this number decreased to 40 dB during the daytime and 35 dB during the night time.
What Can We Do About It?
What we can do is to stay safe, reduce social contact and wait until the Covid-19 vaccine becomes available to everyone. Once the vaccine becomes available, we can start working on sustainable industrialization and switching to green/renewable energy, wastewater treatment and water recycling.
Ecological restoration has never been more important, especially as we can see now that even a small change can improve the quality of our environment.
Sustainability is the future of society as it is the only way to give people what they need while we preserve our environment. The statistics collected during the Covid-19 pandemic will help us to reorganize our lives, industry and habits, which will eventually lead to a healthier environment.
The pandemic has changed our lives in roots, so why shouldn’t we take this as an example and incorporate it in the new models that will save us but also our environment?
