Attiq-ur-Rehman
WHETHER you wear masks or you don’t to go out for shopping or public transport etc, this is worth a read for you. People are using masks to enter a building or hop-on to a public transport. After they are finished, masks are supposed to be thrown into bins but is it happening in reality, I am very dubious about it! Masks are just lying everywhere these days on ground. Car Parks are particularly the common sites for spotting used masks just thrown by people like a cigarette butt. You can spot these in high streets, public places and even in streets.
These discarded masks pose all sorts of health, safety and environmental issues. First of all, let’s agree on this point that masks contain droplets and/or secretions of the person wearing these and may contain all sorts of germs, viruses including Covid 19, who knows. Having these masks lying around us are a contaminating agent to the air we are breathing in.
I have personally noticed people removing masks and just haphazardly trying to throw these in the bin but miss the bin and instead mask lands on the ground. They don’t even bother to try putting it back. Some just carelessly remove these and throw away on the ground. There are also the cases where bins get overflow and masks start flying around. In my opinion, this is selfish and criminal on the part of the people doing this. I am afraid that organizations are focusing upon wearing masks but not much attention has been paid to these discarded masks. But it is about time that an action is inevitable to deal with this.
At the moment, whole world is overwhelmed with the usage of masks and number of masks used on a daily basis are staggering. Just to give an idea that in an hospital with A&E, around 2000 masks per day are used only at the entrances let alone those used by clinical staff. You can imagine the scale of masks usage in other places where footfall is far more bigger than hospitals. Just adding up all these numbers, you will realize that we are inundated by these masks so what measures are in place to dispose these off. I can’t see any serious campaign about this matter. This is a threat to our health in disguise. These masks may clog up the drains. What if children pick these up!
I suggest a few measures which the authorities should endeavour to put in place. As there is legislation around to fine people for smoking indoor, throwing cigarette butts on the ground in public places or fly-tipping etc so there should be an immediate fine if someone is found guilty of throwing masks by Police, Wardens, CCTV or whosoever is empowered to do so. This fact needs to be perceived by my readers vehemently that health risks posed by these vagabond masks are far more higher than cigarette or litter as those will not possibly cause Corona. There is a crying need for signage or communications in place at County level up and down the country to increase awareness about disposal of these masks.
There should be signs pasted on bins in the towns to emphasize the importance of throwing these in the bin. I am sure authorities/think-tanks will work out even more ways and ingenuity to curb down this newly emerging and day by day increasing issue. I hope that readers would have realized that masks are a silent issue which has been somehow overlooked and seeks authorities attention. Let’s hope that this issue is addressed because the first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one.
—The writer is associated with Lloyds TSB Bank, UK.
