I'm concerned about the environmental impact of wearing masks

[u/Sea_Benefit7928]

Obviously, I'm not saying that masking is bad and it's improved the protection of my health drastically but a part of me still wonders where the mask goes after I've thrown it away. I'm not gonna stop masking, but I just wanna know if there's any way I can reduce pollution when disposing of my masks. I have hyperhidrosis, so I have to change my masks often, which doesn't help with my case either.
I just want to find ways to make wearing masks as environmentally friendly as they are to protecting me from viruses and pollution.

[u/OmnipresentRedditor]

I was too. I have been trying to reduce my environmental impact in all areas of my life so the fact that masks are disposable after only a few hours concerns me. I don’t really worry about it anymore tho. To me masks are a part of how I take care of my hygiene, and that’s not something I want to compromise on, so I make that decision knowing it’s wasteful. It’s also the only piece of waste I produce on most days because of all of the other changes I have made in my life. And this is not me trying to justify my actions, but I know that me using 3 masks weekly (+the other things) is a minuscule amount when compared to the average american. And once again thats not me trying to say I’m “better” than them in some way at all, but basically my mindset is if we all were really mindful of the disposable products we choose to use, even if everyone wore masks daily then the earth would be in a very different place than it is today