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Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

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Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Masks work. If everyone is wearing a mask, there are at least two masks between you and an infected person. Masks don't provide 100% protection, but nothing does. However, masks are important, because they enable people to safely perform essential activities like grocery shopping, and most jobs. We don't need to stop _every single transmission_, all that we need to do is make sure that each infected person doesn't in…

The data tells a different story. https://rationalground.com/post-thanksgiving-mask-charts-sti...

Compliance is the fifth chart down, and about 2/3 of the way down is a graph of new daily cases per million between mandated mask locations and those without any mandate.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The report used a global production estimate of 52 billion masks being manufactured in 2020, a conservative loss rate of 3%, and the average weight of 3 to 4 grams for a single-use polypropylene surgical face mask to arrive at the estimate. It sounds like and estimate

I found no justification for the 3% figure in the actual report. EDIT: my bad, the justification is a 3% estimated rate for all plastics globally.

People throw away trash (empty soda bottles, candy wraps etc) a lot easier than they'd throw away a device meant to protect their (and others) health. The real number has to be waaay below 1%.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#44
post #29
post #27

and here I am wearing the same mask I got in April...

Came here to say the exact thing. This article could have been worded better. E.g. "Discarded Masks May Start Entering into the Ocean"

Many use those flimsy cheap ones that are only good for a day or two. Because they are lazy to remember where they put it,they just take a new one. Like plastic plates.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#45
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The report used a global production estimate of 52 billion masks being manufactured in 2020, a conservative loss rate of 3%, and the average weight of 3 to 4 grams for a single-use polypropylene surgical face mask to arrive at the estimate. It sounds like and estimate

i.e. made up. A loss rate of 3% why?

The paper cites a study that estimates 3% of global annual plastic waste ends up in the ocean and goes with that figure. This seems to be much better researched than your reasoning it was simply made up.

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#46

Imagine the archeologists in the year 100,000, sorting through rock samples and going "oh look, there's the mask pollution from the great 2020 pandemic"

The Master, Douglas Adams, already covered this: https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/s/840887

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#47

Whenever I go outside and see >50% people wearing disposable masks I wonder... Why? Did they only find out about the pandemic right now and it caught them off-guard? I have had reusable masks since April. I assumed everyone was doing the same, but everytime I go outside I prove myself wrong. I don't get it.

The reason medical professionals wear disposable masks in clinics is because reusable masks don't work. Actual correct mask usage means changing masks numerous times a day.

You are spreading false information. Reusable masks do "work." Masks lose effectiveness over time and should be changed regularly, but it is not true that "correct" usage involves changing them "numerous times a day."

There are two major factors that, as I understand it, drive the use of disposable masks in clinical settings. First is that healthcare workers see many sick people a day and they are worried about surface transmission. This is the main reason why they need to change their masks so often. The rest of us, who are moving through the world without looking directly into the mouths of sick people, have fewer foreign moisture on our masks. The second is that masks do become less effective over time, but the relative import of mask effectiveness should be judged proportionally to risk of the situation. Again, clinical workers are in a higher risk situation, so they change masks more often. The utility for the general public is lower.

Cloth masks were called into question early in the pandemic due to a 2015 study indicating they spread disease[1]. This was in a medical setting and, as I understand it (I am a layman) it was because of poor mask sanitation (i.e. using masks for many days without cleaning). My understanding is that using a cloth mask for a day is better than no mask. Of course it would be better to change it more often, but the relative risk is low.

Since then we have done a number of studies on cloth masks in the population and those studies have shown that cloth masks are effective[2]. It is true that "better" masks protect better, but that protection is almost always trumped by compliance. The mask you will wear is 100% better than the mask you won't wear. So health experts have focused on that.

The medical community has done a shit job of communicating this, but that's no reason to say things that don't seem to be true.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/

[2] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou...

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#49

Whenever I go outside and see >50% people wearing disposable masks I wonder... Why? Did they only find out about the pandemic right now and it caught them off-guard? I have had reusable masks since April. I assumed everyone was doing the same, but everytime I go outside I prove myself wrong. I don't get it.

The reason medical professionals wear disposable masks in clinics is because reusable masks don't work. Actual correct mask usage means changing masks numerous times a day.

[deleted]

Re: Estimated 1.56B face masks will have entered oceans in 2020

#50
post #21
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They help even when they are worn wrong. https://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/swiss-cheese-pandemic.jp...

how it help, from the picture it shown that virus particle are smaller than mask pores. Masks: The Science & The Myths : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RaBLKKXJt4

Amazing to still see this kind of misinformation posted here, so many months in.
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