2020. COVID-19: Deadly to Plants?
December 18, 2020
Open gallery
You wouldn’t water your plants with bleach or sanitizer. Then why aren’t you concerned with the potential impacts of the chemical runoff?
By Amanda Salmoiraghi
Okay, so maybe COVID-19 itself isn’t deadly to plants, but with the pandemic going on, many people have begun to stock up on various household items. Stores had been sold out of essentials such as toilet paper, paper towels, water, and… disinfectants such as bleach and the ever important hand sanitizer. While these disinfectants have been helpful in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 amongst people, it seems that the run-off of these chemicals might be doing more damage to our environment than we anticipated. Since people are using an increased amount of these disinfectants, the impact that this has on the environment is something to consider.
In a recent study conducted by Bell et al. (2020), it was found that chemical runoff from disinfectants such as bleach and hand sanitizer can be incredibly detrimental to the environment. Now, everyone knows that chemicals aren’t necessarily good to begin with, but most people don’t often think twice about pouring some bleach down the drain, and most also don’t think about the hand sanitizer being washed off at a later time. The runoff from homes and business can make it outside, and with the aid of weather such as rain and other factors, can move it into the environment around us. By using kale, hostas, violets, and mums, Bell et al. (2020) was able to test how detrimental the chemical runoff from bleach and hand sanitizer could be. They observed a significant difference in all the plants when they were watered with 10% hand sanitizer and 90% water, 50% sanitizer and 50% water, 10% bleach and 90% water, and 50% bleach and 50% water. In other words, their plants died! So, while bleach and hand sanitizer might be great in helping to slow the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases, it presents an entirely new issue in regards to chemical waste runoff and how it affects the environment.