environmental issue that greatly affect people's health during pandemic
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Explanation:
Answer:
As the number of coronavirus infections grew exponentially in Europe and North America in March, restrictive public health measures to stave off a worsening pandemic were put in place.
They included stay-at-home orders, which were first issued in Italy and then in rapid succession in most other countries around the world.
With entire populations ordered to stay home, schools, offices and factories limited their activities, road traffic dwindled to a minimum and airlines reduced scheduled flights by 60% to 95%.
Slashed greenhouse emissions
While these developments have inflicted substantial economic and social shocks as global production, consumption and employment levels dropped precipitously, they have also been associated with significant reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, air quality levels in the world’s major cities improved dramatically in March and April. Air quality improved largely because of a reduction in factory and road traffic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and related ozone (O3) formation, and particulate matter (PM).
During the same period, global air traffic dropped by 60%. Taken together, these emissions reductions have led to a temporary dip in CO2 emissions from their pre-crisis levels, encouraging some to hope that our global society may indeed be able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially over the long term to mitigate impending climate change.
So long as the coronavirus crisis keeps economic activities reduced, emissions will remain relatively low. However, it would be short.sighted to conclude this is a durable environmental improvement as emissions will most likely rise to previous levels when economic activity picks up as the crisis resolves.
Many environmental campaigners are thus demanding that bailout packages for transportation companies and industrial manufacturers include provisions for large emissions reductions in their future operations. Such provisions could help prevent pollutant emission levels from rising to pre-crisis levels going forward.
Not all positive
But not all the environmental consequences of the crisis have been positive. Volumes of unrecyclable waste have risen; severe cuts in agricultural and fishery export levels have led to the generation of large quantities of organic waste; maintenance and monitoring of natural ecosystems have been temporarily halted; and tourism activity to natural areas has ceased.
Local waste problems have emerged as many municipalities have suspended their recycling activities over fears of virus propagation in recycling centres.
Food retailers have resumed using plastic bags at checkout points citing health concerns over consumers’ reuse of paper bags. In addition, due to stay-at-home policies, many consumers have increased their consumption of take-away food delivered with single-use packaging.
All these developments have created acute challenges for the waste management industry at a time when they are operating with limited capacity due to the coronavirus crisis.
With the emergence of import restrictions in export markets and sharp declines in the availability of cargo transportation services, the coronavirus crisis has led to increased volumes of un-shippable agricultural and fishery commodities.
Many export-oriented producers produce volumes far too large for output to be absorbed in local markets, and thus organic waste levels have mounted substantially.