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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

#81

Post by worker767424 »

Spivak wrote: post #68
f311a wrote: post #55

I lost all faith in humanity in 2020. I still can't believe people can be that stupid. We won't be able to safe ecology when people can't follow simple rules.

I'm not sure what people expected to happen when we started producing billions of disposable masks and distributing them to everyone instead of just medical staff that have to follow disposal procedures. This shit happens with literally all of our single-use disposable garbage. Any system that requires billions of individual people to follow rules that inconvenience them without any sort of enforcement or consequence…

> reusable cloth masks

There might be issues with reusing masks (I haven't seen any data on this).

This is more like one of those problems you sort out later and worry about it less when it's happening. The one thing I'd propose is do what we can to not use synthetics in them so they'll at least biodegrade.

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

#82

Post by matz1 »

zucked wrote: post #67
matz1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Masks don't provide 100% protection, So 1% protection ? >but nothing does. However, masks are important, because they enable people to safely perform essential activities like grocery shopping, and most jobs. fortunately that the chance of getting sick from covid from doing those activities without mask are very very low. infection is not useful metric because only small percentage actually cause sickness. Masks: Th…

Are you insinuating that any improvement is not worth pursuing? Let's look at this a different way: I have COVID and I'm contagious. I don't know that, of course, so I go to the grocery store. The same grocery store you're shopping it. We cross paths in the cereal aisle. Would you rather me be wearing a mask?

>Are you insinuating that any improvement is not worth pursuing

That is not what I insinuating at all.

>Would you rather me be wearing a mask

If you are sick, you should rest at home, just like with any other illness. I wouldn't care whether you wear mask or not.

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

#83

Post by napier »

It’s surprising that after a year, people still haven’t figured out that reusable elastomer respirators with long life replaceable filter cartridges and >99% small particle filtration effectiveness are the best option from the perspectives of safety, overall cost and sustainability.

I’ve been using the same pre pandemic 3M P100 industrial respirator with a retrofitted exhalation valve filter for months. It fits with a perfect seal and doesn’t get uncomfortable or warm during extended wear.

Hopefully public health experts and governments will back consumer friendly, low-profile reusable respirator designs. There’s no reasonable reason for there to be a shortage at this point, after all this time, and even sending a few to every household with a link to an instructional video would cost a tiny fraction of the past and future direct and indirect economic consequences stemming from lack of optimal PPE for the general public and essential workers alike.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

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

#84

Post by subpixel »

f311a wrote: post #55

I lost all faith in humanity in 2020. I still can't believe people can be that stupid. We won't be able to safe ecology when people can't follow simple rules.

I live in a near-pristine area on the coast where people pay high prices to eat seafood dinners on a pier while they gaze at the sunset and let their plastic straws and oyster cracker foils blow into the ocean below them.

I estimate conservatively that at least one piece of something plastic from every table winds up in the ocean.

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

#85

Post by worker767424 »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #64
f311a wrote: post #55

I lost all faith in humanity in 2020. I still can't believe people can be that stupid. We won't be able to safe ecology when people can't follow simple rules.

If people can't follow simple rules, then the state must force them to, under threat of fines, arrest, and prison time.

Singapore is a lovely city.

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

#86

Post by DoreenMichele »

frogpelt wrote: post #14

This is my favorite kind of headline. The kind that screams, "No matter what you do, it's wrong!"

All "news" is bad news. I recommend not reading it most of the time.

Better to read research papers and raw stats somewhere than commercial "news," in most cases.

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

#87

Post by frankfrankfrank »

f311a wrote: post #55

I lost all faith in humanity in 2020. I still can't believe people can be that stupid. We won't be able to safe ecology when people can't follow simple rules.

Could you explain what rule it is you think people are too stupid to follow?

Since you bring up safe ecology; do you think it is plausible that the source of those 1.5 Billion masks is the same 9 rivers that make up 90% of all plastic ocean pollution, 7 of them being Asia and 2 in Africa?

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

#88

Post by Spivak »

verelo wrote: post #73
Spivak wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what people expected to happen when we started producing billions of disposable masks and distributing them to everyone instead of just medical staff that have to follow disposal procedures. This shit happens with literally all of our single-use disposable garbage. Any system that requires billions of individual people to follow rules that inconvenience them without any sort of enforcement or consequence…

> "and charged for them" You cannot charge the poorest people, those that pose the highest likely risk of contracting the illness, for masks that ultimately protect all of us.

Sure, totally reasonable. Having a small percentage of people get them for free wouldn't really throw this scheme off when the goal is to reduce waste over the entire population.

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

#90

Post by slaw »

WhiskeyVictor wrote: post #57
yibg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much protection would be enough for you to wear one? 50%? 75%? Hell, even 1% is higher than 0 and really, what's the harm? Yea most people don't get very sick, except for the 300k that are dead just in the US.

2020 is coming to a close. In a couple of weeks we will have the final tally for the year. This is good because we can then compare it to other years in total. I suggest you check the all cause excess mortality figure. It's already been projected to be essentially the same. This is a really good metric to evaluate the threat level. Here's a nice graph of deaths per month per millon for a nearly 200 year perspective:…

There will be some mortality excess in 2020.

'The observed temporary excess mortality likely arises because people in vulnerable groups die weeks or months earlier than they would otherwise, due to the timing and severity of the unusual external event.' https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.11.20229708v...

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