The coronavirus pandemic brought chaos around the world and one big issue — the disposal of masks and PPE kits.
In a viral video from India’s Tamil Nadu state veterinarians removed a face mask from the stomach of a Siberian Husky.
The clip was shared over the internet by Supriya Sahu.
The masks we carelessly throw away can end up killing animals.A team of veterinarians from TN University of Veterinary & animal sciences at Chennai successfully removed a face mask from the stomach of a Siberian Husky dog. Video not for faint hearted.Please ensure safe disposal pic.twitter.com/rdC72gjxLr
— Supriya Sahu IAS (@supriyasahuias) June 12, 2021
It has been obviously assumed that the dog must have swallowed it while the mask was lying unattended.
With masks, gloves and other PPE gear being in wide use, concerns regarding the environmental damage caused by improper disposal of these items have been on the rise.
A couple of weeks ago, a French environmental organisation has found several discarded masks and gloves along with other waste inside the Mediterranean.
An NGO by the name of Opération Mer Propre, that actively works in cleaning underwater waste from the Mediterranean sea around the Antibes region in southern France, recently collected nine surgical face masks and 14 latex gloves from the sea-bed near coastal Côte d’Azur resort.