As many aspects of our everyday lives have come to a standstill during the Covid-19 pandemic, the global climate fight, too, faces a major challenge since many plastic reduction efforts around the world have stalled, resulting in a huge uptick of plastic waste around the world:
Fears about the virus spreading on surfaces prompted several states to temporarily ban reusable grocery bags, sending single-use bags flooding back into the marketplace. Major legislation aimed at reducing plastics packaging has stalled as lawmakers’ priorities shifted elsewhere. Disposable masks and gloves have become the harbingers of pandemic life, along with plastic take-out food containers and the debris of Amazon packages. Meanwhile the plastics industry ramped up its lobbying, urging federal agencies to declare the sanitary benefits of disposable plastics, and arguing that plastic bag bans went against public health.
“It’s all on hold’: how Covid-19 derailed the fight against plastic waste” by Erin McCormick