Waves of pharmaceutical waste
Résumé
The viral waves observed during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic (COVID-19) are suggesting a new global phenomenon by which a global change, e.g., a viral wave, is inducing a wave of waste, that is a sudden rise of waste and associated pollution due to sharp and time-limited changes of human behavior. The originality of this phenomenon is that the crisis-here the pandemic-is fast and global, compared to previous crises which were slower, more restricted, and local, and that the crisis is limited in time, like a wave. This wave-of-waste phenomenon fits well with the entrance into the Anthropocene, theorized by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, where humans now influence the planet globally. Here we argue why such waves-of-waste are likely to occur more frequently in the next global crises, on the basis of the sudden rises of pharmaceutical waste observed during the pandemic.
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