Coronavirus: French alarm at Covid-linked Med air pollution

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Video shot by means of a French environmental NGO within the Mediterranean Sea displays mask and gloves littering the seabed.

Opération mer propre (Operation blank sea) is attempting to scrub up the coast close to the Côte d’Azur hotel of Antibes.

It’s appalled by means of this new coronavirus air pollution, which provides to the already power downside of plastic air pollution.

The gang says it’s sounding the alarm, as Europe slowly emerges from lockdown and folks get started revisiting seashores within the sizzling climate.

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The gang’s founder, Laurent Lombard, who shot the underwater pictures and posted it on Fb, says “those mask – we’ve not had them for lengthy, and we are going to have billions, so I say be careful, it is the beginnings of a brand new form of air pollution”.

Diving off Golfe-Juan, close to Antibes, he discovered 5 disposable face mask and 4 latex gloves at the seabed, together with the standard plastic garbage akin to empty bottles.

Already on 14 Might – simply 3 days after the French lockdown used to be eased – boulevard cleaners in Paris complained on social media that many mask were discarded at the capital’s pavements.

An MP within the southern Alpes-Maritimes district, Eric Pauget, has put ahead a draft legislation to extend the tremendous for littering a public position with mask. It will tremendous an perpetrator €300 (£265; $330) as an alternative of the present €68, information web page LCI studies.