Masks have helped us protect ourselves from COVID-19 for months now, but with the single-use PPE making its way into gutters and waterways, Queenslanders are being reminded to protect the environment as well.
Health Minister Yvette D'Ath has thanked the public for wearing them, but urged the community to properly dispose of their masks after use.
"We've been seeing a fair bit of littering of those disposable masks," Ms D'Ath said.
Every month an estimated 130 billion masks are thrown into landfill around the world, which equates to 3 million masks every minute, according to study from the University of Southern Denmark.
Not long into the paramedic, images of birds and sea life tangled in the elastic of disposable masks acted as sobering reminder that it was not just human life threatened by the pandemic.
Mask wearers have been encouraged to cut or snap the strings on disposable masks before putting them in a bin, to ensure they cannot entangle wildlife.
Healthy Land and Water (HLW) is an independent organisation that collects data and rubbish from waterways in south-east Queensland, servicing the Brisbane River and tributaries, Logan River, Bremer River, Caboolture River and Pine River.
HLW spokesperson Rachel Nasplezes said masks were now being found among the plastics and packaging her team collected.
"Our clean-up crew continue to find masks in areas where we have never seen them before, right across the four major catchments in south-east Queensland that our program services," Ms Nasplezes said.
"To add to the issue, we believe people are unlikely to pick up masks when they see them in the environment because of contamination risks, further increasing the opportunity of this litter pollution entering our waterways."
She said masks were more commonly found in waterways near hospital precincts, like Breakfast Creek and Norman Creek.
"Because [masks] are so lightweight, they lend themselves into being blow into storm water drains, which empty into our creeks, or blow directly into the local environment or waterways."
Ms Nasplezes said for the most part, people did not deliberately litter and awareness about the harm masks can cause the environment would help change behaviours.
Clean Up Australia told the ABC surgical masks could take up to 450 years to break down in the environment.
A potential road to recovery
Researchers at RMIT University have been working on technology to enabled disposable masks to be used in making road materials including bitumen, asphalt and concrete.
"Basically, what we can do is shred the face masks and use them as road material," RMIT reseacher and engineer Mohammad Saberian said.
"Based on our study we found that the addition of face masks to road pavements … can provide stronger roads and also flexible roads for us.
"What we found is that to make 1 kilometre of a two-lane road, about 3 million masks can be used up."
While the preliminary studies have shown promising results, the technology has not yet been developed.
Before masks can be put in our roads the focus remains on keeping them out of our natural environments.
