Is that a coral underwater? No, it’s a Covid-19 mask

Is that a coral underwater? No, it’s a Covid-19 mask

Kamini.Mathai@timesgroup.com

Chennai:27.01.2021

For more evidence of the pandemic, dive 60 feet under water. Scuba divers, kayakers and water sports enthusiasts say they have been collecting piles of discarded masks from the shoreline and seabed off Chennai and neighbouring areas.

Over the past few days, scuba diver S B Aravind has gathered up more than 120kg of garbage floating about underwater, a third of that being Covid-19 masks, he says. “I was doing a regular dive off the coast of Puducherry with students when I noticed corals with masks wrapped around them. So I went back for another few dives and started cleaning it up,” he says. At 18 metres under water, Aravind says there are “so many all over the place it’s going to take a long while to clean up”.

Every year, the December-January rains result in a lot of flotsam and jetsam being washed into the sea, masks being the latest entrants. Kayaker John AJ for instance, has so far picked up 30 or more masks from the waters of Kovalam, ECR and Puducherry.

“I carry a bag with me every time I kayak so I can pick up garbage from the sea. Just doing my bit. It’s mostly plastics and masks,” he says. “If people disposed garbage in the proper manner this would not be happening,” he says.

Masks are part of the coastal landscape now, says Bay of Life founder Showkath Jamal. “Especially the blue disposable ones. We’ve been ridding the beaches of them. Every day we pick up at least 50.” While Jamal’s team does beach cleanups every day, every February they organize an ‘inside out’ session, where in association with the Coast Guard, they do an intensive cleaning of the beach and the water. “Divers will clean the insides of the sea and we will clean the outside.”

N Godhantaraman, head of department of Environmental Science at the University of Madras, says macro and microplastics can get consumed by marine organisms and impact the food chain. “The pollutants affect at every level from the zooplankton to the larger fish. And finally, humans as well, who consume the fish,” he says. Though nonbiodegradable masks may begin as macroplastic pollution, they end up as microplastics, he explains.

Conservationists from around the world have begun putting up social media posts of masks polluting ocean floors. French conservationists Laurent Lombard for instance showed videos of algaeentangled masks and in the sea near Antibes.

TROUBLED WATERS: Discarded masks in the sea off the city coast