Lethal lockdown legacy: Study says discarded Covid face masks poisoning us and nature

Billions of carelessly dumped masks are spewing toxic chemicals and the government looks the other way yet again

The nation was told masks would save lives during Covid. But a damning new study has revealed they’ve instead left us with a toxic legacy that could blight our health and environment for generations.

Researchers say the billions of disposable masks churned out during the pandemic are now disintegrating, releasing microplastics and dangerous chemicals into our water, soil and food chain.

“This study has underlined the urgent need to rethink how we produce, use and dispose of face masks,” said Anna Bogush of Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, the lead author of the study.

At the height of the pandemic, an eye-watering 129 billion masks were being used globally every month—yet no proper recycling system was ever set up. Instead, the vast majority were simply dumped in landfill or discarded in streets, parks, rivers and seas, where they are now leaching hazardous materials into the environment.

Experts found every type of mask tested leaked plastic particles, with the so-called ‘gold standard’ FFP2 and FFP3 masks releasing the most—up to six times more than others. Even more alarming, scientists discovered they were also leaching bisphenol B—a chemical mimic of oestrogen that can disrupt the human body’s delicate hormonal balance.

Taking into account the global mountain of single-use masks, researchers estimate they have already released up to 214kg of bisphenol B into nature—a staggering figure with unknown long-term consequences for human and animal health.

Bogush warned: “We can’t ignore the environmental cost of single-use masks, especially when we know that the microplastics and chemicals they release can negatively affect both people and ecosystems.”

Critics say this is yet another scandal exposing how little the government cares about public health. Ministers who pushed mask mandates failed to plan for their disposal, creating an environmental timebomb while ordinary Britons did their bit to follow the rules.

Now, years on, the public is left paying the price as discarded PPE poisons the very world it was meant to protect. Needless to say, we all needed protecting from Covid, but we see again how dim and short-sighted politicians do not plan for our future.