Mask Wearing: We Need to Change

Mask Wearing: We Need to Change

Sarah Pine

Mask wearing. It shouldn’t be such a controversial subject, but somehow, it is. We all left school last year celebrating the fact that we could come back this year unmasked and back to normal. This, obviously, changed in lieu of Delta’s arrival. Now, our campus remains a sea of (mostly) covered faces, and clearly, some people aren’t happy about it. 

Last year, I looked at the people in their disposable masks– normally below their noses– and sighed. I assured myself, since COVID numbers were improving, that we would soon be returning to normalcy, and that my worry about the amount of waste our student body was creating by constantly throwing away masks and replacing them would soon end. It hasn’t ended. And it probably won’t end for a while. I hate to be so negative, but it’s the truth. There are, however, some changes we can make to assure a better future for our planet and for our safety. Firstly, we need to wear reusable masks. Even looking around the room I’m in now, over half the people are wearing masks that will likely end up in our landfills for tens and hundreds of years to come. If everybody just decided to buy a few reusable masks– which you can get pretty much anywhere that sells anything– we could create a significant change. And before you come at me with excuses, such as “None of those masks fit me” or “I don’t have time to wash masks”, consider the serious consequences that your current mask wearing practices will create. Imagine the amount of masks you’ve worn during the pandemic. Hundreds. And if you multiply that by the number of students in our highschool, thousands. To refute your hypothetical excuses, your disposable mask doesn’t fit either– it isn’t above your nose even when you twist the sides around your ears– and washing masks is about the easiest task I could imagine. My fifteen-year-old brother does it. So can you. Also, I have another argument that might feel even more compelling. You will save money. I know that some of you just grab masks from the front office every morning, but to those of you who don’t, buying a small pack of reusable masks is way less expensive than constantly rebuying packs of disposable masks. To sum up my message: wear reusable masks. Also, might as well wear them above your nose while you’re at it.