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\u00a0Introduction to P. Tricornutum and Surgical Face Masks<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Kelsy Smith\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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COVID-19 has been affecting our world since its official declaration as a global pandemic in March 2020, but what some do not know is the effect on our ecosystems that COVID-19 has had. PPE or Personal Protective Equipment pollution in our marine ecosystems has skyrocketed since the pandemic. COVID-19 lead for a higher use of single used plastics and has in cause lead to more than eight million tons of pandemic associated plastic waste generated globally with more than 25,000 tons of it entering the ocean (Yeming-Peng et. al., 2021). The majority of the waste dumped into the ocean is from hospitals. One of the most abundant forms of waste dumped into the oceans is the face masks we use to help slow the spread of COVID-19. These face masks are a large part of plastic pollution due to their composition, antioxidants, UV stabilizers, plasticisers, and organic pigments are just of the few of the additives in surgical face masks that get dumped into the oceans. It was revealed that face masks fragments in fresh water are able to leach organic, and inorganic by-compounds into water. These soluble compounds leave a chemical footprint in the water that could trigger unwanted effects within the aquatic ecosystem (Marta-Sendra et. al., 2022).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Research has been done on just how surgical face masks affect the waters they are thrown in, one study showed the fragmentation and degradation of the surgical face masks. Face masks purchased in Spain were used for this experiment. Two separate experiments were done on the masks, a whole mask was submerged in marine water, and fragments of a mask were submerged as well. Throughout the experiment 10 water samples were extracted from both experiments over a month time frame. Once the month was over the water samples were collected and placed in a flask and did a toxicology analysis. Along with a toxicology analysis a flow cytometry analysis and photosystem II analysis was performed on both samples from the masks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0As a result from the analysis elements like iron, copper, and barium concentrations were found in the blue layer of the face mask, zinc was the only found element in the white layer of the mask. On the other hand for the face mask fragments elements like manganese, zinc and nickel. The released kinetic of these three metals were studied from the fragments of mask and the whole mask. It was found that the metals released were only from the fragments of face masks. Another study showed found that the fragment water contained more fibers and fragments compared to the whole face mask. The results from the microalgae\u2019s exposed to the mask water showed a dose dependent response when the water was less diluted cell density also showed a decrease and showed a seven.11 decrease after 48 hours of exposure. As we can see the most danger seems to be coming from face mask fragments and not whole face masks but even if whole masks seem to hurt the environment \u201cless\u201d does not mean they are less fatal to the ocean as they will degrade into fragments over time. Microfibers seem to be the most damaging part of face mask pollution compared to the release of inorganic and organic compounds. Currently, in aquatic systems microfibers are the main source of microplastic pollution with 13 million tons of synthetic fabric waste entering the ocean each year (Mishra et al., 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not only is the ocean water being affected by the pollution of face masks but even small organisms like diatoms are affected. Diatoms are a unicellular eukaryotic microalgae that are very important in the global cycling of carbon and oxygen and act as a food source for organisms. A significant decrease was observed in the P. Tricornutum population that was exposed to the fragments of face masks after 21-48 hours. The microalgae population recovered its density after 72 hours leading researchers to think that in a monoculture a P Tricornutum population has the ability to recover cell density.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0After finding the results of the studies done we can see that just like any other form of litter face masks can be just as damaging to our oceans and the organisms in them. Even if thrown into the ocean as a whole mask face masks over time will disintegrate, as we saw from the experiments only fragmented face masks showed a significant amount of metals released into the water with Mn being the one released over a shorter period than Zn and Ni. Fragmented face masks also showed more of a release of microfibers than the whole mask waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Sendra, M., Rodrigo, R., Yeste, M., Blasco, J., Sanchez, Antonio. (2022).\u00a0Products released from surgical face masks can provoke cytotoxicity in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum. https:\/\/www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.lib.odu.edu\/science\/article\/pii\/S0048969722037081?via%3Dihub<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Spaulding et al. (2021). What are diatoms. https:\/\/diatoms.org\/what-are-diatoms<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0Introduction to P. Tricornutum and Surgical Face Masks \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Kelsy Smith\u00a0 COVID-19 has been affecting our world since its official declaration as a global pandemic in March 2020, but what some do not know is the effect on our… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20498,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/kelsysmithbiol293\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}