nearly eight million tonnes of plastic pollution enters the oceans from all over the world, but for the first time in 27 years, Canadians are witnessing an unusual clutter of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) kits washing up along the country’s shorelines.According to Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup’s annual “Dirty Dozen” 2020 report, some 15,000 volunteers removed over 41,000 kilograms of litter from Canadian coasts and listed finding discarded COVID-19-related supplies among them.
Plastic pollution crisis — How waste ends up in our oceans “This is the first time that we’ve seen it recorded and sort of statistically significant numbers too,” Laura Hardman, leader of plastic-free oceans at Ocean Wise, told Global News.