Mask Wearing: We Need to Change

Mask Wearing: We Need to Change

Sarah Pine, Contributor

Mask wearing. It should not 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. The celebration, however, ended in lieu of Delta’s arrival. Now, our campus remains a sea of covered faces, and clearly, some people are not happy about it. 

Last year, I looked at the people in their disposable masks and sighed. I assured myself, since COVID numbers were improving, that we would soon be returning to normalcy, resolving my worry about the amount of waste our student body created by constantly throwing away masks and replacing them. It has not ended, and it probably will not end for a while. I hate to be negative, but it is the truth. There are, however, some changes we can make to assure a better future for our planet. Firstly, we need to wear reusable masks. Even looking around the room I am 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. 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 consequences that your current mask-wearing practices will create. Imagine the number of masks you have worn during the pandemic: hundreds. And if you multiply that by the number of students in our high school: thousands. To refute your hypothetical excuses, your disposable mask does not fit either– it is still below your nose even when twisted around your ears. Washing masks is one of the easiest tasks 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 do not, 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.