Government-mandated protective mask wearing policies have contributed to a more than 8,000 percent spike in global mask pollution with scientists calling on authorities to consider policies encouraging reusable PPE products in future. On Dec. 9, science journal Nature Sustainability published the results of a study that examined the correlation between litter levels of personal protective equipment (PPE), and the timing of policies from the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as 11 national governments—Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The scientists examined two million records of data from Litterati, a site dedicated to tracking, photographing, and tagging the location of litter. They found that the proportion of masks in litter increased exponentially from when the WHO first announced a health emergency in March 2020 to October 2020. This resulted in an 84-fold (8,400 percent) in mask litter compared …