Review of Related Literatures

10. PPE-Related Waste

Worryingly, at the time of writing, the global COVID-19 case count had surpassed 191 million, with
nearly 4 million casualties and numerous hospitalizations. Many countries continue to rely on billions of
personal protective equipment more than a year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-
19 a global pandemic. Personal protective equipment (PPE) such as face masks, gloves, and face shields,
as well as wet wipes, have been shown to prevent contracting COVID-19 (WHO, 2020).

The majority of PPE contains plastics or plastic derivatives, with higher percentages
of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), as well as other polymeric materials such as
polyester, polyurethane, nylon, and polystyrene (Fadare and Okoffo, 2020, Aragaw, 2020). Face masks
are used as primary PPE to prevent the spread of COVID-19 disease, and they are classified into several
types, including blue surgical masks, dust masks, high grade medical masks (i.e., N95 and KN95), and
reusable masks. Face masks made of non-woven or melt-blown fabric can be multilayered (Fadare and
Okoffo, 2020, Aragaw, 2020).

To keep up with global demand, mass production of PPE has increased worldwide. Disposable face mask
production in China, for example, has reached approximately 200 million per day in a global effort to
combat the spread of COVID-19 (Aragaw, 2020). Apart from the impact on our physical health, the
COVID-19 pandemic has a significant environmental impact via PPE pollution, which we are already
experiencing and will worsen as a result of widespread production and use, as well as improper and
unregulated disposal of various types of PPE (Adyel, 2020, Prata et al., 2020).

Since the first sightings of PPE on numerous coastal shorelines, the need for research to assess
comprehensive data on their abundance and thorough estimation of the associated environmental risks
has become clear. This has resulted in the establishment of an entirely new interdisciplinary platform for
PPE research, which has grown tremendously over the last two years. On the one hand, several rough
estimates have quantified waste from used single-use plastic and PPE, as well as calculated the number
of face masks to be used and average daily usages in each country (Chowdhury et al., 2021, Haque et al.,
2021), which could total nearly 129 billion masks consumed monthly (Prata et al., 2020). Environmental
PPE surveys, on the other hand, have already reported the presence of a variety of discarded COVID-19
pandemic items in aquatic and terrestrial environments (Thiel et al., 2021, De-la-Torre et al.,
2021, Ardusso et al., 2021, Okuku et al., 2021).

Subsequently, a substantial body of research has shown that improperly discarded face masks are a
significant source of secondary microplastics upon degradation, particularly micro- and nano-fibers
(Shruti et al., 2020, Saliu et al., 2021, Shen et al., 2021, Wang et al., 2021), and that this fraction of
(micro-)plastic will continue to rise in the coming years, potentially exacerbating the existing plastic
pollution. Because most polymers are not biodegradable, they can remain in the environment for years,
acting as a vector for a variety of contaminants and being toxic to organisms.

Meanwhile, evidence of intentionally or unintentionally added chemicals in the production of polymer-

based face masks is only now emerging (Fernández-Arribas et al., 2021, Sullivan et al., 2021, Liu and
Mabury, 2021), indicating that they could be a source of chemicals to the environment. The discovery of
these new findings improved our understanding and insight into the fate of PPE under environmental
conditions. Despite its potentially important role in shaping public health, PPE, particularly face masks,
has emerged as a major environmental and health concern in terms of plastic pollution, including micro-
and nano-plastics.

17. Generation of Waste

Solid waste management is defined as the direct generation, collection, storage, transport, source
separation, processing, treatment, recovery and disposal of solid waste. It is a polite term for garbage
management. It is the response to the world’s stinking and escalating problem on the garbage.
Mounting waste problem has been the core foundation of hazardous illness and land depletion, not to
mention is negative upshot to the environment. The system of handling trash, be it municipal waste
collection, recycling programs, open dumping, incineration and gasification fall on the same category.
Despite the years of attempting to resolve the mounting waste problem, the problem still persist
(Enriquez, 2011)

 As reported by Guzman et al., (2010), solid waste management is one of the most critical environmental
problems today. In metro Manila alone, approximately 0.6 kilogram per person of garbage is produced
with a total amount of about 6000 to 7000 tons per day. Despite the fact that not all of these collection
system people seem to be unconcerned with the amount of solid and semisolid waste they produce.

Proper collection is a solution to the country’s waste problem. Unfortunately, disposal would not be the
most and sole answer to this concern (Guzman et al., 2010). Until recently, the disposal of municipal
solid waste does not attract much public attention. From prehistory through the present day, the
favored means of disposal was simply to dump solid waste outside the city and village limits (Enger &
Smith, 2006).

On the other hand, source reduction is considered to be the solution to solid waste problem. This means
that first and foremost, people should consider how much waste is generated and in what ways can they
reduced it. Secondly, they should consider how much of the wastes can be diverted from final disposal
into other forms. Related to this, several issues need to be resolved by the government agencies
concerned with the solid waste management program in the Philippines (Guzman et al, 2010).
18. Waste Segregation

“Garbage is a great resource in the wrong place lacking someone's imagination to recycle it into
everyone's benefit” (Hansen 2015). While still in the wrong place, “waste” certainly generates the right
level of attention among scientists, policymakers, business prefessionals, and regular citizens all over the
globe. Accordingly, the amount of publications on “waste management” topics has grown exponentially.
For instance, the keyword search of “waste management” on Scopus online bibliographic database
results in 58.746 publications between academic peer-reviewed articles, trade news and institutional
documents published from 1959 until today.

A. Household Waste

Cognizant about the problems on solid waste disposal and management in the households of the
selected community, people are still observed to be relatively unmindful on how their beliefs and
practices contribute to waste generation and waste management issues. In order to attain a change in
behavior among members of communities toward pro-environmental citizenship (Jenkins, 2006), they
have to develop positive beliefs on waste management that would directly influence their practices in
dealing with solid wastes produced in their homes. However, such a change in beliefs and practices
requires the involvement of all stakeholders concerned with Solis Waste Management, since in the
process of implementing measures to reduce waste generation, there are SWM constraints (Ogawa,
2005), financial, technical, and institutional constraints, which should be overcome to achieve the
intended outcome.

. Developing countries, like the Philippines, focus mainly on executing costeffective waste management
practices in waste reduction, separation, and recycling (De Feo and De Gisi, 2010; Krook et al., 2007).
While there have been many campaigns on waste management in the country the problem of waste still
persists. For instance, it should be noted that in urban areas of the country, both low and high density
areas have similar service provisions and educational campaigns on waste management although these
areas expectedly respond to these measures differently—issues on waste being more of a problem in
high rather than low density areas. Therefore, there is a need to recalibrate measures in promoting
responsible environmental behavior through proper solid waste management in households, hence the
implementation of this study

B. PPE-Related Waste

The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provoked a situation where Single-Used Plastic and its generated
waste are growing at an unprecedented rate from healthcare units and households in almost every
country of the globe. The SUP-based PPE used as protective gear is undoubtedly the only viable option
in this current context to defend against viral transmission (Cook, 2020; Czigány and Ronkay,
2020; Hughes, 2020).
The majority of PPE contains plastics or plastic derivatives, with higher percentages
of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE), as well as other polymeric materials such as
polyester, polyurethane, nylon, and polystyrene (Fadare and Okoffo, 2020, Aragaw, 2020). Face masks
are used as primary PPE to prevent the spread of COVID-19 disease, and they are classified into several
types, including blue surgical masks, dust masks, high grade medical masks (i.e., N95 and KN95), and
reusable masks. Face masks made of non-woven or melt-blown fabric can be multilayered (Fadare and
Okoffo, 2020, Aragaw, 2020).

SUP items are referred to as disposable plastic items ‘designed to be used once and then thrown away’
(Seas at Risk, 2017). The largest use of SUP is seen in plastic packaging items – grocery bags, food
packaging materials, straws, cutlery, cups, bottles and containers – which integrate thermoplastics (e.g.
polyethylene terephthalate – PET, polyethylene – PE, polystyrene – PS, polypropylene – PP) and
thermosets (e.g. polyurethane – PUR, urea-formaldehyde – UF resins) as the main polymers for
producing SUP items. North-east Asian countries produce 26% of the resins used in these SUP items.
Globally, the SUP manufacturing industrial sector is the largest one which alone contributed to the
generation of half of all the plastic waste in 2015 (FFI, 2019; UNEP, 2018).

In order to reduce viral transmission during the emergency, single-use facemasks or coverings have been
mandated in all social places across different countries of the world (Prata et al., 2020). Such actions
have obviously resulted in a massive rise in usage of single-use PPE (i.e. facemasks, hand gloves, goggles,
etc.) as well as its unwitting dumping in the environment. For instance, during the statewide lockdown
measures, daily usage of facemasks was recorded as 900 million and 40 million pcs per day for China and
Italy, respectively (Ragazzi et al., 2020).

In Africa, the use of facemasks will reach 700 million pcs a day due to the enactment of mandatory use
of facemasks in several nations (e.g. South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria) as estimated by Nzediegwu and Chang
(2020). Based on the monthly use data of facemasks in Italy, Prata et al. (2020) have estimated that
129.0 billion facemasks on a monthly basis will be required for the 7.80 billion residents of the globe. If
only 1% of the produced masks are disposed improperly in the environment, this will result in 10 million
pcs of facemasks and produce about 30,000–40,000 kg of plastic waste (weight of a facemask is about
3.0–4.0 g) on a daily basis (Shetty et al., 2020; Silva et al., 2020).

Due to the ease in lockdown measures, Italy is expected to receive 20 million pcs of facemasks on a daily
basis and 70,000 kg of plastic waste will be generated from the used facemasks (Cesaro and Pirozzi,
2020). Allison et al. (2020) calculated that the average use of single-use facemasks by the general public
for a period of 365 days in the UK will produce 66,000 t of infectious waste and 57,000 t of packaging
waste.

19. Waste Disposal

Improper waste disposal is one of the existing problems that the Philippines is facing right now with
difficulty as humans are the root of this problem. There are several studies conducted throughout the
past years that deduced the importance of proper waste disposal in the community and the effects of
improper disposal of the waste to the community, environment, and the health of the residents. All of
these are introduced in this section. According to Khylle Tumala (January 2015) from her study in the
effects of improper waste disposal in the Philippines, “Improper waste disposal is one of the biggest
environmental issues here in the Philippines. It caused bigger problems that affect not only the
environment but also the health and life of the people. This problem may be resolve or it will remain
problem to the country in the next few years”.

A law in the Philippines approved by the Office on the President on January 26, 2001 was created in
response to the rapidly growing rate of garbage problems in the country caused by improper waste
disposal. Unfortunately, even though there is a law, improper waste disposal in the Philippines was
ranked 3rd as top source of water contamination in a study on February 2015. Waste disposal is
different from waste management.

Proper waste disposal is needed to properly execute waste management. Waste Management refers to
the recycling, processing, transport, assortment, and monitoring of waste products. The waste products
are mainly of three types: solid, liquid or in gas state. Solid waste commonly is known as non-
biodegradable waste (UKEssays, 2015). Their study centered on the waste hierarchy or 3R’s – reduce,
reuse, recycle – and explored waste management as a concept and effect of waste disposal. Without
properly executing waste disposal, difficulty in waste management also emerge. It is also proven that
human activities and lack of discipline are the main reason of improper waste disposal that makes the
problem difficult to resolve.

19. Waste Collection

As a developing country,the Philippine government is also facing several issues and concerns in
solid waste management. In 2000, a landfill in Payatas collapsed that killed about 300 people,
mostly waste scavengers (JEC 2005; Navarro 2002/2003). According to the IBRD/WB (1999)
report, the Philippines is facing one of the greatest waste management challenges of the Asian
countries based on the countries projected rate of waste collection and resources available for
dealing with the problem.
Rapid population growth and industrialization contribute to the country’s problem of waste.
The Philippine’s population exhibited a huge increase from 27 million in the 1960’s to 84.6
million in 2006, (Espaldon and Baltazar 2004; World Develop indicators online 2007).
Considering the modern lifestyle, one person is estimated to generate about half kilo of waste
per day (Philippine Canada LGSP 2003).
However, there are some municipalities that, despite of hurdles, have been able to implement
solid waste management programs successfully in their localities. One of them is the town of
Los Baños, a small urban area in the province of Laguna. With successful implementation of
solid waste management programs, Los Baños became one of the model towns in solid waste
management in the Philippines.
Solid waste management includes “all activities pertaining to the control, transfer and transport
and disposal of solid wastes in accordance with the best principles of public health, economics,
engineering, conservation, aesthetic and other environmental considerations” (Philippines-
Canada LGSP 2003:8). It is also argued that waste management is a “reactionary discipline, that
is, casual activity: waste management is simply reaction to waste” (Pongracz 2002:149)