The Trash of Masks

Two years into the pandemic and with the lifting of masks mandates happening around the country we are seeing a massive glut of discarded masks lying about on the ground everywhere. We go for a walk and it's impossible not to notice the trash of masks blowing around in the street, lying in parking lots, on people's lawns... everywhere. It's a new form of litter created specifically by the pandemic and nobody seems to want to pick them up. Well, at least while not wearing a pair of plastic gloves. I have a special pair of gloves I've been using the past two years to pick up trash that has accumulated in front of our house including masks.

Today there were a couple of masks right in our driveway. It was a windy day but where did they come from? Probably dropped out of someone's pocket as they got out of their car. I know it's happened to me. I carry multiple of masks in various pockets at all time including pants and coats. People's cars also have multiple masks scattered about the front seats. I know ours does. So it might be easy to lose track of a mask as it ends up on the ground. There are so many about that it is getting easier to ignore them.

We took a walk today as usual and I was noticing them everywhere until I made an effort to ignore them and just enjoy our time outside. When we are out and about doing errands we see discarded masks in store parking lots.

When we were visiting Katie recently in Philly there were masks on the ground all over her Mt Airy neighborhood too. I'm sure it was like that everywhere. When we were traveling from Buffalo to Philly we saw discarded masks all over the rest stop parking lots, near the food service areas and scattered around the gas stations. A sign of the times.

Becky was thinking about using the discarded mask motif in her artwork.