Language:

"You need to dispose of them somewhere safe": Covid-19, masks, and the pit latrine in Malawi and South Africa

PloS one, 2022-02, Vol.17 (2), p.e0262741-e0262741 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

COPYRIGHT 2022 Public Library of Science ;2022 Kalina et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License. ;2022 Kalina et al 2022 Kalina et al ;ISSN: 1932-6203 ;EISSN: 1932-6203 ;DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262741 ;PMID: 35192618

Full text available

Citations Cited by

Actions
1. Add to My Research
2. Remove from My Research
3. E-mail
4. Print
5. Permalink
6. Citation
7. EasyBib
8. EndNote
9. RefWorks
10. Delicious
11. Export RIS
12. Export BibTeX

Title:
"You need to dispose of them somewhere safe": Covid-19, masks, and the pit latrine in Malawi and South Africa
Author: Kalina, Marc ; Kwangulero, Jonathan ; Ali, Fathima ; Tilley, Elizabeth
Ravindran, Balasubramani
Subjects: Behavior ; Central business districts ; Cloth ; Coronaviruses ; COVID-19 ; COVID-19 - epidemiology ; Disease transmission ; Engineering and Technology ; Engineering schools ; Environmental health ; Epidemics ; Fieldwork ; Hazardous waste management industry ; Hazardous wastes ; Health risks ; Households ; Humans ; Income ; Infectious wastes ; Latrines ; Low income areas ; Low income groups ; Malawi ; Malawi - epidemiology ; Masks ; Medical research ; Medical Waste ; Medical wastes ; Medicine and Health Sciences ; Menstruation ; Municipal solid waste ; Municipal waste management ; Pandemics ; People and Places ; Plumbing fixtures ; Poverty ; Prevention ; Process engineering ; Public Health ; Qualitative research ; Risk perception ; Sanitation ; SARS-CoV-2 ; Solid waste management ; South Africa ; South Africa - epidemiology ; Toilet facilities ; Waste management
Is Part Of: PloS one, 2022-02, Vol.17 (2), p.e0262741-e0262741
Description: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has generated an immense amount of potentially infectious waste, primarily face masks, which require rapid and sanitary disposal in order to mitigate the spread of the disease. Yet, within Africa, large segments of the population lack access to reliable municipal solid waste management (SWM) services, both complicating the disposal of hazardous waste, and public health efforts. Drawing on extensive qualitative fieldwork, including 96 semi-structured interviews, across four different low-income communities in Blantyre, Malawi and Durban, South Africa, the purpose of this article is to respond to a qualitative gap on mask disposal behaviours, particularly from within low-income and African contexts. Specifically, our purpose was to understand what behaviours have arisen over the past year, across the two disparate national contexts, and how they have been influenced by individual risk perceptions, established traditional practice, state communication, and other media sources. Findings suggest that the wearing of cloth masks simplifies disposal, as cloth masks can (with washing) be reused continuously. However, in communities where disposable masks are more prevalent, primarily within Blantyre, the pit latrine had been adopted as the most common space for 'safe' disposal for a used mask. We argue that this is not a new behaviour, however, and that the pit latrine was already an essential part of many low-income households SWM systems, and that within the Global South, the pit latrine fulfils a valuable and uncounted solid waste management function, in addition to its sanitation role.
Publisher: United States: Public Library of Science
Language: English
Identifier: ISSN: 1932-6203
EISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262741
PMID: 35192618
Source: GFMER Free Medical Journals
MEDLINE
PubMed Central
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
ProQuest Central
DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals

Back to results list


INSPIRE LIBRARY - TON DUC THANG UNIVERSITY	(84-028) 37 755 057	Feedback
19 Nguyen Huu Tho St. Dist.7, HCM	thuvien@tdtu.edu.vn	Feedback

"You need to dispose of them somewhere safe": Covid-19, masks, and the pit latrine in Malawi and South Africa

Searching Remote Databases, Please Wait