Teddies Talks Biology - Issue 9

—An SESC Applied Science project

by Douggie Campbell— 4 th Form

Single use plastics from Covid - 19 are a necessary yet extremely harmful part of this pandemic. I wanted to see if I could measure the impact that one mask, wipe or glove could have on the envi- ronment, and how in great numbers this impact could be extremely harmful. To measure how biodegradable Covid waste is, I left different types in compost for a period of 50 days. These results allowed me to predict how long these would take to fully decompose:

Item

Time to fully decompose

Gloves

1250 days (3 years, 4 months) 1000 days (2 years, 8 months) 164,250 days (450 years)

Wipes

Masks*

How biodegradable is Covid waste?

Covid waste is extremely harmful to our environment and can have a great negative effect on our planet. Disposable masks take 450 years to decompose, while wipes we use everyday at school take 3 years at least to decompose. It clearly is not made to disappear, and there is no reason for people in everyday life to have such a negative impact on the planet.

Teddies Talks Biology I Issue 9 I June 2021

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