Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Plastic Waste Management: A

Bibliometric Analysis by using Dimension.ai

Nezha Mejjad

, Rida Farhan

, Nabil Chakhchaoui

3,4

, Nisha Shankhwar

, Aynur Unal

, Hari Murthy

Prosenjit Saha

, Omar Cherkaoui

and Sabu Thomas

Laboratory of Applied Geology Geomatics and Environment, Faculty of Sciences Ben M'Sick, Hassan II University,

Casablanca, Morocco

Laboratory of Physics of Condensed Matter (LPMC), Faculty of Sciences Ben M'Sick, Hassan II University, Casablanca,

Morocco

BGIM Laboratory, Higher Normal School (ENS), Hassan II University, Casablanca, Morocco

REMTEX Laboratory, Higher School of Textile and Clothing Industries, Casablanca, Morocco

Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India

Digital Monozukuri, Palo Alto, California, United States of America

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering-CHRIST((Deemed to be University), Kanmanike, Bengaluru,

India

Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, JIS Institute of Advanced Studies and Research Kolkata, JIS University, Kolkata,

India

School of Chemical Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India

Keywords: Bibliometric study, dimensions.ai, COVID-19, waste management, plastic waste, facemask.

Abstract: Plastic waste is one of the most pressing environmental problems causing biodiversity loss and threatening

human well-being. Globally, many actions and strategies have been proposed, and efforts have been made to

minimize plastic production and consumption to fight against plastic pollution. This paper aimed to measure

the interest in increasing covid-19 related plastic waste, including medical-grade plastic (PPE) and packaging

food waste, through analyzing the related scientific production between 2019 and 2021. We utilized the

information system "dimension.ai" to carry out this analysis, which showed that the most studied topics are

related to the psychological impacts of COVID-19 and waste disposal management. The effect of the COVID-

19 pandemic across the end of the life cycle of several plastic products is assessed as well in the present study.

The abrupt change in the structure and quantity of waste underlines the need for an effective, flexible waste

management method to tackle plastic waste issues, especially during the COVID-19 era. Multiple strategies

and approaches are proposed to minimize the likely effect of the pandemic on global waste management

systems.

1 INTRODUCTION

The present Coronavirus has made rapid progress, as

seen in the worldwide statistics (MacKenzie, 2020).

One of the immediate ecological consequences of the

epidemic is the rapid rise in the request and usage of

disposable products such as personal protective

equipment (PPE), including disposable masks and

gloves (Mejjad et., 2021). The general use of

protecting gear during COVID-19 created significant

upstream supply chain disruptions worldwide

(Rowan et Laffey 2020; Guan et al., 2020), making

waste management and elimination processes more

complicated and challenging. However, plastic

presents societal benefits for humans and used since

approx—1600 BC (Hosler et al., 1999). Then, plastics

constitute a crucial component of the range of used

materials in modern society as all aspects of our daily

lives comprise plastics or rubber (e.g. clothing and

footwear).

Besides, plastics provide many public health

goods and benefits such as medical and surgical

equipment and facilities also clean drinking water

supplies (Andrady et al., 2009). Therefore, due to the

multiuse of plastic and its application importance for

our daily life, we face tremendous obstacles to

eliminating plastic waste while preserving our current

lifestyles. Currently, the use of face masks is

538

Mejjad, N., Farhan, R., Chakhchaoui, N., Shankhwar, N., Unal, A., Murthy, H., Saha, P., Cherkoui, O. and Thomas, S.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Plastic Waste Management: A Bibliometric Analysis by using Dimension.ai.

DOI: 10.5220/0010740700003101

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Big Data, Modelling and Machine Learning (BML 2021), pages 538-545

ISBN: 978-989-758-559-3

mandatory to prevent the transmission of COVID-19.

Consequently, plastics are gaining more importance

as the facemasks are mainly made by plastics

(polypropylene) (Benson et al., 2021), resulting in a

substantial plastic waste quantity that may be

discarded everywhere (Mejjad et al., 2021). However,

during COVID-19, single-use plastics like surgical

masks and plastic cups rare became vital in

supporting society.

Nevertheless, plastics and their processing are still

a significant global problem as they are also

contaminated with bacteria and should be dealt with

as toxic waste. Before the pandemic onset, plastic

waste management was still considered a

considerable environmental problem due to

increasing worries about increasing the plastic

pollution rate in earth and ocean ecosystems (Verma

et al., 2016; Wright et al., 2017; Rajmohan et al.,

2019). The global waste management system has not

been able to accord satisfactorily with current plastic

junk, and the amount of trash during a pandemic is set

to increase, which will impact negatively the

management system of waste, medical capacity, and

existing health care.

Eventually, the deposit of medical waste in

uncontrolled areas can directly affect the environment

and health through soil contamination and

groundwater. During incineration, if they do not

perform proper filtering, the air can also be polluted

and cause disease for the surrounding population.

Thus, it is mandatory to consider environmental

impact assessment of used methods for waste

treatment, particularly medical-related waste.

Ferguson et al., 2020; anticipate the pandemic to

rise in the second quarter of 2020 when the request

for heat decreases in the generality of the northern

hemisphere due to warmer climate conditions

because the issue is linked to the incompatibility

among the supply and demand for the temperature

recovered. In the context of the world is experiencing

through the large spread of the epidemic, we may be

faced with the option of setting priorities for the

efficient elimination of toxic waste, even though most

of the waste-to-energy facilities may not be in a

suitable location for energy recovery. Xu et al., 2019

have summarised the possible options for recovery of

waste heat and demonstrates the obstacles preventing

large implementation of recovery of this heat at the

low temperature. However, it remains unclear

whether systems can be designed for optimal energy

recovery to be installed on short notice or carry the

mobile units to manage quickly rising amounts of

medical junk.

We realize a significant growing demand for

personal protective equipment (PPE), which

comprises various plastic and rubber products, for our

ongoing struggle to combat COVID-19. So, this

current work sought to (i) measure the interest in

increasing covid-19 related plastic waste, including

medical-grade plastic (PPE) and packaging food

waste; and to (2) provide a point of view on how the

disruption affected by Coronavirus can act as a

catalyst for the time being changes in plastic waste

management practices worldwide.

2 METHOD AND MATERIAL

2.1 Bibliometric Analysis Tool

(VOSviewer)

In the bibliometric study of the present paper, the

publications were recorded from the information

system "dimensions.ai," which covers many

documents and allows easy downloading and

exploration of datasets. Dimensions.ai includes

patents, awarded grants and clinical trials together

with publication (conferences proceeding, papers,

chapter book, and books), policy reports and

Altmetric attention data (Hook et al., 2018). A

number of bibliometric studies were carried out by

using demensions.ai as source for analyzing datasets

(García-Sánchez et al., 2019; Hook et al., 2020 &

2021; Martin Martin Martín-Martín et al., 2021).

The research fields related to plastic, facemasks

and COVID-19 are mainly "Medical and health

sciences", "clinical sciences", "Engineering", among

others fields, as shown in the figure. This reflects that

the full concern and the main scientific contribution

related to COVID-19 and facemasks is given to health

and medical sciences and clinical sciences.

2.2 Literature Review

We conducted a literature search using available

online databases and internet search tools such as

ResearchGate, Google Scholar Science Direct, Web

of Science (WoS) to perform a bibliographic database

based on peer-reviewed scientific publications, policy

and technical reports. The literature search was

initially focused on the studies related to the influence

of the covid-19 on plastic waste, secondly PPE use

rate and related waste generation among healthcare

workers and management of COVID-19 related

waste. In this sense, more than 80 peer-reviewed

papers, technical and policy reports were consulted

and investigated.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Plastic Waste Management: A Bibliometric Analysis by using Dimension.ai

539

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Bibliometric Analysis using

VOSviewer

6030 publications of recorded publications from

dimensions.ai information system that corresponding

to our search query for Facemask-COVID-19 include

articles (N=4636 ; 76.88%); preprint (N=728;

12.08%); chapter (N=518 ; 8.59%) ; proceeding

(N=120 ; 1.69%) ; edited book (N=102 ; 1.69) ;

monograph (N=32 ; 0.53%); While 5.60 % (338)

were policy documents, 1.22% were patents (74);

0.48% clinical trial (29); and 0.48% were datasets

(29). A total of 4636 scientific research work were

published in more than 122 journals, mostly in

medRxiv ( N= 423; 9.12%), The SSRN Electronic

Journal (N=162; 3.49% ) ; International Journal of

Environmental Research and Public Health (N= 124;

2.67%) ; PLOS ONE (N=118; 2.54% ).

The visualization map for publications carried out

between 2020 and 2021 (Fig.1) shown the leading

scientific publication topics for Facemask-COVID-

19. The circle/node size defines the number of

published studies related to the keywords, while the

line represents the connection between every

keyword. The link between every keyword is strong

when the line is short.

The analysis of the keywords map/visualization

map indicates that the most recurrent keywords are

"SARs CoV" (co-occurrence : 1147); "mask" (co-

occurrence: 1346); "patient" (co-occurrence: 1244);

"knowledge" (co-occurrence: 462) which present

biggest sizes. The most studied topics related to

COVID-19 and facemasks management are the

survey research aimed to understand the

psychological impact of the COVID-19 cluster (Red

circle; 130 items/keywords), followed by waste

disposal management cluster (Green circle; 101

items/keywords), covid-19 related symptoms cluster

(Blue circle: 78 items/keywords), covid-19

transmission way/mode cluster (Yellow circle: 69

items/keywords), and facemasks types and efficiency

cluster (Purple items/keywords).

The occurrence of keywords "knowledge" and

"questionnaire" is due to the lack of knowledge

regarding the COVID-19 related topics, which lead to

explore them through using “survey research”. For

example, during the lockdown, it was not possible to

carry out a survey in the field to understand the people

feeling toward the propagation of this virus (Mejjad

et al., 2021) or understanding the people behaviour

toward the use and management of facemasks

(Mejjad et al., 2021) so almost all studies were based

on online surveys.

In addition, waste disposal management (WSM)

has been challenging since the beginning of the

covid-19, especially with the increase of discarded

personnel protective equipment, which increased the

concern about the WSM among scientists.

The density map shows that the circles “patient”,

“participant”, “SARs COV”, “mask, “challenge” and

“knowledge” presents high density indicating that

these keywords have a solid association with other

links as they occupied the brown area. Besides, the

higher density means that the keywords situated in the

brown area are more developed and well studied. The

other keywords occupying the clear area (orange and

yellow) are less studied or investigated.

3.2 The Influence of the Covid-19 on

Plastic Waste

While governments and institutions are looking for

alternatives after the Chinese government decided to

reduce its solid waste imports to zero early in 2020,

news began pouring in China about the new

Coronavirus. Within a few weeks, the whole world

was under the weight of the epidemic, which

imposed a range of sanitary measures such as social

distancing, restricted movement across borders, shut

down of all human activities. Consequently, these

taking measures have caused the temporary

suspension of circular economy and green economy-

related projects and made the waste recycling sector

return its accounts. Then, this sector is expected to

face unprecedented losses as a result of declining

quantities entering the waste collection systems,

disruptions related to transportation procedures,

diminishing potential demand for materials,

excluding packaging waste, and lower long-term

investments, in addition to buyers abandoning

sustainability measures due to their preoccupation

with other concerns. The world currently produces

about 450 million tons of plastics a year (Ritchie,

2018). The percentage of plastic waste recycling in

the European Union is 30 percent, 22 % in China,

and in the United States, it drops to 8.4 percent

(Ritchie, 2018).

The pandemic diffusion has contributed to

significant difficulties in treating hazardous PPE

waste since the general population also uses such

medical equipment. Between 20 January and 31

March, there was an estimated 207 kt of accrued

medical waste in all of China. For example, medical

junk increased from the usual level of 40 t/d to reach

a peak around 240 t/d, override the extreme burning

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540

capacitance of 49 t/d in Wuhan city (Tang, 2020). The

burning cost of harmful medical junk in China is

ranged from 281.7 to 422.6 USD /t compared to 14.1

USD/t for municipal solid waste (Klemes et al.,

2020). Figure 2 demonstrates the trends of the waste

stream in comparison to treating capacitance.

Treating systems designed for the amount and

qualities of the waste under usual conditions have to

adapt to the sudden changes that bring irregular

operations. Technology research is necessary to

ensure that these systems are fit to manage the

pandemic's dynamic existence and development.

Another concern is that there is still a gap of

knowledge regarding the virus itself because it is

unclear which products and techniques will be

required to deal with the epidemic.

Figure 1: Visualisation map (a); density map (b).



Figure 2. The predicted increase in medical and MSW

waste flow along with the coronavirus crisis (Klemes et al.,

2020).

3.3 PPE Use Rate and Related Waste

Generation among Healthcare

Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the primordial

role of plastic as a protector of human life where

PPEs, including gloves, facemasks, and packing all

sorts of materials, have played a crucial role in

reducing the spread of the virus among humans.

According to Kalina and Tilly 2020, across the globe,

the consumption of facemasks and medical gloves

during the COVID-19 per month are 129 billion and

65 billion, respectively. At the same time, the World

health organisation has reported that the demand for

PPE is projected to increase and reach 89 million

facemasks, 76 million gloves and 1.6 million goggles

per month as a part of sanitary and safety measures.

Besides, it was estimated that the disposable mask

market has increased from about $800 million during

2019 to $166 billion in 2020. On the other hand, the

market size of plastic packaging is projected to

significantly increase because of pandemic response

and pass from $909.2 billion recorded in 2019 to

1012.6 billion by 2021, with an annual growth rate of

5.5% (Business insider, 2020). Accordingly, this

high, increasing rate of PPE usage during the

COVID-19 is due mainly to awareness rise among

healthcare workers where the adherence rate of PEEs

usage was about 85% in COVID-19 wards in a study

carried out in Hospital University in Germany

(Neuwirth et al., 2020).

Table 1 below displays the estimated medical

waste generated per day before and during the

pandemic in different cities worldwide and an

estimated quantity of generated medical waste

worldwide (Liang et al., 2021). The generated

medical waste in selected cities is six times higher

during COVID-19 compared with before COVID-19

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Plastic Waste Management: A Bibliometric Analysis by using Dimension.ai

541

(e.g. Manila (the Philippines, Jakarta (Indonesia);

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)), while worldwide, the

M.W. output has increased from 200t/day on 22

February to 29 000 by the end of September 2020.

This increase is mainly related to increased daily

generated healthcare waste because of the significant

increase in COVID-19 cases and the number of beds

in hospitals where the average values of healthcare

waste increased from 2.5kg/bed/day to 3.5/bed/day.

Table 1: Estimated values of generated Medical waste throughout some countries around the world (tonnes).

Cities worldwide Before COVID-19 During COVID-19 References

Wuhan (China) 40t/day 247t/day Wardani & Azizah, 2020

Manila (Philippines) 47Mt/day 280t/day ADB, 2020

Jakarta (Indonesia) 35Mt/day 212t/day ADB, 2020

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) 35Mt/day 210t/day ADB, 2020

Bangkok (Thailand) 27Mt/day 160t/day ADB, 2020

Ha Noi (Vietnam) 26Mt/day 154t/day ADB, 2020

Catalonia (Spain) 275/month 1200t/month ACR, 2020

Tehran (Iran) 52-74t/day 80-100t/day Sangkham, 2020

South Korea - By mid-July 2600t MoE Korea, 2020

Worldwide 200t/day 29000 t/day Liang et al., 2021

3.4 MSW Handling and Disposal

Procedures before and during the

Epidemic

Figure 3 compares the management and

mismanagement of COVID-19 related waste impact

on the environment and shows that the mismanaging

and mixing of hazardous waste with domestic waste

disturb the processes of MSW, which may represent

environmental threats to biodiversity and coastal

areas. Through Figure 3, we can clearly show how the

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted waste treatment

and disposal, where during this pandemic, all kinds of

waste are mixed, making the treatment and recycling

of this waste impossible. Instead, good management

of Covid-19 related waste allows safe collection and

disposal of municipal and medical waste.

It is worthily mentioned that household waste during

this pandemic is mixed with PPE, such as single-use

facemask that could be infected (Mejjad et al., 2021),

which means that this waste will be treated by

incineration as it cannot be reused, recycled for

industrial, agricultural or practical causes (DEFRA,

2014)]. Consequently, these situations negatively

impact the recycling industry and programs and

increase the quantity of waste received by landfills

that exceed the capacity of the waste management

facilities, as reported in many countries around the

world.

4 CONCLUSION

The bibliometric analysis showed an increasing trend

toward studying medical waste and the management

approach to reduce the PPE associated risk. However,

the studies carried out on psychological effects of

COVID-19, and its origin is still well developed and

investigated compared to COVID-19 related impact

on the environment.

This review study shows that medical waste has

dramatically grown worldwide during the COVID-19

pandemic. This increasing trend calls for better

control (in terms of medical waste monitoring, care

and disposal) to enhance performance in medical

waste treatment. Therefore, Medical waste presorting

and disinfection should be promoted and designed to

advance their future recyclability.

It is required to establish new business models for

plastic waste selection, collection and sorting. These

processes and exposure to hazardous waste are among

the critical barriers facing the economics of

mechanical recycling for recycling companies. Be-

sides, forging local initiatives seems to be a suitable

solution for rebuilding confidence in the safety of

separated waste and preparing clean and

homogeneous plastic supplies for recycling

companies.

Consumables can be made from biomass

resources, compostable plastics or bio-degradable.

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Figure 3: Management and mismanagement of COVID-19 related waste (PPEW Personal Protective equipment waste).

(Credit: Nezha MEJJAD)

"Biodegradable" plastics may be decomposed into

harmless, minor molecules with the action of existing

organisms in the normal environment. In order to

break down "compostable" plastics into simpler

chemical compounds, composting facilities under

regulated conditions (e.g. additional nutrients and

certain temperatures) are required. Polylactide (PLA)

(Kulkarni & Anantharama, 2020) is a compostable

bioplastic manufactured from fermented starch sugar.

Many biomass products, such as cellulose, chitosan,

cotton, and lignin, can also be used to produce

biodegradable materials. Indeed, there is also a need

for better marking and guidelines for safe

biodegradables and compostables, which is the same

with plastic recycling.

Adopting and helping to spread the circular

economy approach based on minimizing, reusing, and

recycling philosophy will reduce the daily amount of

received plastics junks by rivers and coasts and

minimise greenhouse gas. Also, there is a need to

advocate corporations to respect their promises to

minimise plastic waste and urge them not to lose sight

of longer-term environmental goals. More concern

also needs to be addressed to the plastic waste

management methods and techniques through

developing technologies and promoting scientific

research to win the battle against plastic waste.

Managing sufficiently plastic waste sounds much

more complicated than managing COVID-19 which

means that all actors, including governments, NGOs,

industry, academics, and the public, must win this

battle. Thus, working together to build synergistic

methods is an urgent need for conserving both earth

and marine ecosystem services and healthy life, but

this can only be realised by adopting a constructive

action and behaving more actively for a better

environment and life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research paper has been made possible thanks to

the Dimensions.ai database.

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