Pollution is something that we have been hearing about for a long time, but in the past few years it has gotten worse. According to the State of air, 40% of Americans are living in a place with unhealthy levels of particle pollution. All this pollution can come from driving your vehicle, industries, wildfires, etc. One of my thoughts on pollution is how it reacted to Covid. Because first I think about how everyone needed to stay in their houses, this means you can’t go to your work, you don’t use your car, some industries stop working and flights decrease, all of these were things that generated pollution. This made that in some cities the air quality improved.
My second thought was that we had to add something else to our everyday routine if we wanted to go outside and what I’m talking about is a mask. Millions of people started using masks, but specifically disposable face masks, which means you use it for a day or for some hours and you throw it away. Imagine all the pollution masks have made. A study made by OceansAsia estimated that over 1.5 billion masks are believed to be in the ocean. Also with all the pandemic situation we needed to use way more medical stuff than we were using in the past. All this medical stuff generates more trash which at the end would create more pollution. I think Covid increased pollution more than decreased it.
Some ways that you can help the planet are by getting solar panels. The only problem with this is that not everyone can get them because they are expensive, you can also stop using plastic bags and replace them with cloth bags or tote bags, these are an easy way to stop the use of plastic. Another way is no more plastic straws. I think that places that are specifically on the coasts are starting to change this and try something more ecologic like paper or bamboo. Straws were usually found in the ocean and in animals which sometimes caused their death, this caused governments to take action on this, in some cities plastic straws are banned such as Washington, Miami and Malibu. I think governments should give more importance on making small changes that can give big results. I think they need to promote more about the importance of this, and how we are going to kill our planet if we continue like this.
Sources:
https://www.lung.org/research/sota/key-findings
Do you think covid helped to reduce or increase pollution?
Do you think plastic bags should be banned?
Do you think the government should do more initiatives to help reduce pollution?
Replies
I think that covid probably increased pollution. Even though many things changed that we couldn't do, most other people just made it covid safe and you would still travel with your car there and make pollution. Plus all the masks and other things from covid that made pollution. Some things during covid may have reduced pollution, but all the things added with covid most likely made pollution higher.
I agree with you having to use masks cause an increase in water pollution. Also all the medical stuff increased and that also caused more pollution.
I am not really sure wether to think covid helped reduce or increase pollution. I can see why it would of helped reduce it, but also increase it with all the mask. I would think banning plastic bags would be difficult because they are helpful but it would defintely help our world if we did.
Covid helped and worsened pollution on different levels. The less travels helped but the masks didn't. Plastic bags should be banned because they are terrible for the earth and break easily so they are pretty worthless. Reusable bags are no more than 99 cents usually and are much more safer and even paper bags that are recyclable. The government should care so much more about pollution. They can't keep doing a good job in the country if the country and the world are literally failing because of all the pollution that some people, quite frankly, think is fake.
I agree with you. You can easily change a plastic bag for something more ecological and it's not even as expensive as solar panels. Is something really easy to start doing and contribute to reduce pollution. I also think the government should do a better job informing on this stuff and bringing ideas to reduce pollution.
COVID hasn't been very helpful but during those lock down months we did find out about several shoking things. I don't remember which city it was, but they were able to finally see the sky since factories were shut down. Several alike situations occured also. So I believe in some way it was helpful. But you also have to think about our increase in consumption of disposable like things.
I agree with you covid was really helpful to decrease air pollution, but if we talk about a different type of pollution like water pollution it didn't help, and in addition it is way more trash like masks in the oceans.
China for sure saw the biggest decrease in pollution when quarantine was especially prominent, this was because no one could go anywhere so there was no high capacity of cars in small rundown parts of town. This would cause it to be the lowest it has ever been for quite some time, even making it safe to go outside without a mask if there wasn't a pandemic going on. But the moment they let everyone start going out pollution skyrocketed. So in conclusion, I believe quarantine helped dumb down pollution a lot, which is why once things start to become more automated and clean, meaning you don't have to leave your house to do simple things like grocery shopping carbon emissions would decrease from individual people at least.
I believe COVID make a decrease in pollution up until a point. At one point, everyone was held within their homes. Theres was no one leaving their homes, which means not many car fuels and fossil fuels were burned. Although that is true, with the requirment of masks, masks seemed to be thrown and disspossed of quite often. These plastic, and paper masks found their way to streams, oceans, streets, and more.
I agree with you, everyone staying in their houses made a big difference for air pollution. Also talking about the masks, they are starting to be found in everyplace because sometimes people don't even care and through them instead of putting them in a trash can.
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