The masks that have stormed into our lives in the past year are manufactured in unimaginable quantities and became a huge threat to the environment. They are tossed away everywhere and pollute public space, reaching rivers and oceans and into the stomachs of animals. They cannot be recycled, and their mass production requires a great deal of environmental resources.
However, the damage that the Covid-19 causes to the environment is not limited to masks. The unprecedented increase in the number of shipments from the supermarkets is also giving its signals, “The issue of shipments is insane,” says Prof. Ofira Ayalon of the Samuel Neaman Institute at the Technion. “and because of the law of carrier bags in the various supermarkets have switched to paper bags that we use for a quarter of an hour. This paper is no more environmentally friendly than the plastic bag.”
