Fighting against the pandemic or threatening the environment? Unforeseen challenges during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In the current scenario of COVID-19 outbreak whereby the virus spreads through fomites and aerosols, there has been a huge increase in the use of soaps, sanitizers and personal protective equipment’s (PPEs) which in turn is causing huge amount of liquid and solid waste generation. We briefly describe here as how this pandemic is causing an impact on global environment. We also provide a rationale of using a modelled treatment framework using a reverse logistic network as temporary waste management measure during this pandemic.