Universidad San Francisco de Quito

Writing and Rhetoric

Names:

 Andrea Beltrán - 00205563

 Nasha Minda - 00204104
 María Paula Egas - 00210658
 Paúl Rosales - 00205259

Date: 2020-12-14

“The mask is for you, not for nature”

Perhaps the COVID-19 pandemic has given the planet a temporary respite, although it
is not long-lasting. Today, the new problem of environmental contamination is the latex
masks and gloves used to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Many organizations have
expressed concern about these new pollutants, as disposable face masks, latex gloves, bottles
of hand sanitizers, and other non-recyclable personal protective items are increasingly filling
the oceans, rivers and sewers. A surgical mask can take up to 400 years to be completely
destroyed, so it could reach landfills, or in the worst case be blown away by winds and end up
in the ocean.

We chose this topic to start this campaign of social activism because, like some
organizations, we are concerned about the contamination that these personal protection
products are generating and through this campaign we want to raise awareness among people
to take care of the planet. We want people to be responsible for new waste; the purpose is that
these residues end up in the containers that are on the street or in the houses, not on the
ground, nor on the beaches, nor in other natural spaces. The fear that this waste will end up in
the ocean is that the animals will mistake it for food and die of plastic poisoning. With our
campaign we want to teach people how to reduce the environmental impact of these personal
protection products. One of the options is the use of cloth masks instead of disposable masks
and avoiding the use of single-use plastics if possible.

To start with this campaign, we want to use social networks, specifically, we want to
make use of Instagram, so that people can know the contamination that all personal protection
waste against COVID-19 is generating. We chose this tool, because today it is one of the most
used social networks by young people, which is the audience we want to reach. To carry out
the campaign through Instagram, we are going to create a profile, with the name of our
campaign "The mask is for you, not for nature" and using the hashtag #mask4Unot4nature, to
reach more people. Moreover, the rhetorical devices we decided to use to capture the attention
of our followers are ethos, pathos and logos:

 ETHOS: We are going to use reliable sources to validate our information regarding
contamination caused by medical products.
 PATHOS: We decided to use pictures on Instagram to appeal to the emotions of our
followers. This will allow the audience to create consciousness about the current
situation.
 LOGOS : Data and statistics in real time about personal protection waste.

Social activism has become one of the main agents of change both nationally and
internationally. All this becomes more important since social networks have the potential to
generate a great impact in the promotion of social causes. The role of social networks
becomes more important given the need for activist groups to professionalize the volunteering
they are doing. With this tool, putting it to good use, it allows young people to have more
openness to participate and promote social campaigns. Social networks have an immense
power of convocation and dissemination of social causes and demands, however, we must not
neglect that the content, the causes themselves, have the leading role in social activism, and
therefore, this should not be neglected.