The fine if you throw a mask on the ground will soon pass, between now and the summer, from 68 to 135 euros (with an increase to 375 or even 750 euros in some cases), announced this weekend Brune Poirson , the Secretary of State for the Ecological Transition. Coronavirus masks are becoming a new source of pollution for the seas and oceans. "We will soon see more masks than jellyfish in the water". Diver Laurent Lombard wanted to raise the alarm with this shocking phrase, perhaps a little exaggerated, he admits.
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Masks take up to 500 years to degrade
Since the deconfinement, the diver has been lifting waste from the bottom of the Mediterranean, to the coast of Antibes. "I found his masks, gloves, and even two hydroalcoholic gels", enumerates Laurent Lombard at the microphone of Europe 1. "I had never found any before. New consumption, new waste. It's almost mathematical ", he laments.
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Single-use masks are made of more than 90% plastic and take up to 500 years to degrade. But they never completely disappear. The plastic particles are eaten by marine animals, up to the fish that end up on our plates.
Recurrent pollution?
For the moment, Laurent Lombard and his teams have only drafted a few dozen masks but the acceleration may be brutal, warns the diver. "Knowing that there will be more and more masks consumed, inevitably we can ask the question if this is not going to become a recurrent pollution in the same way as the butts that are found by the hundreds of thousands in the sea", he fears.
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However, solutions do exist, starting with filtering the rainwater that carries waste from the streets at the entrance to the sea, as is already the case in Cannes.