COVID-19: a Step Forward or Backwards in the Battle Against Plastic Pollution? (Part 1)

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Hello everyone! In the previous blog post, I shared my experiences of recovering from COVID-19 at a quarantine facility that was filled with single-use plastics. On the same topic, I would be exploring more about the role of the pandemic in the global fight against plastic pollution in this blog post and for subsequent posts as well.

WHAT IS PLASTIC POLLUTION?

Plastic pollution refers to the accumulation of synthetic plastics in the environment, thereby becoming a threat to wildlife and humans (Moore, 2022). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enters our marine environment, posing a significant threat to our marine wildlife (Parker, 2019). In 2010, slightly more than a decade ago, 275 million tonnes of plastic waste was produced (Ritchie and Roser, 2018).

In recent years, there has been growing awareness of the impacts of plastic pollution on our environment. Consequently, the global movement to reduce single-use plastics has gained traction tremendously over the years. Major cities such as Seattle banned plastic straws and large corporations, including Starbucks and McDonald’s, had also announced plans to remove plastic straws and stirrers out of their supply chains (Gibbens, 2019). Beyond plastic straws, other forms of single-use plastics such as containers and plastic bags were slowly beginning to be phased out. While the road ahead was long, the world had made significant progress in the global fight against plastic pollution.

 

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. Within a year since the start of the pandemic, an estimated 1.6million tonnes of plastic waste is generated daily (Benson et al., 2021). While a large portion of this is medical waste, other single-use plastic such as food containers also constitutes the total plastic waste produced. This is because, with lockdowns and no-dining restrictions in place, many had used food delivery options that use a lot of single-use plastics (e.g. Plastic utensils, food containers, wet wipes).

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Unfortunately, much of this pandemic plastic waste is unavoidable as PPE cannot be reused. As of now, there is still no viable replacement to single-use disposable PPE which implies that the large amount of plastic waste generated from the pandemic would likely continue for a foreseeable future. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, improperly discarding 1% of our surgical mask waste is equivalent to 100 billion entering our environment monthly. While the world scrambles to contain the virus spread, it seems that the pandemic has set back the progress that the world has made to reduce global plastic pollution and the environment has taken a toll.
Could the world balance its fight against COVID-19 with its fight against global plastic pollution or are the two battles dichotomous? In the next blog post, I will explore the opportunities to balance our two battles.
That’s all folks, till next time!

 

References

Benson, N. U., Bassey, D. E., & Palanisami, T. (2021). COVID pollution: Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on global plastic waste footprint. Heliyon, 7(2), e06343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06343

Gibbens, S. (2019). Plastic straw bans are spreading: Here’s how they took over the world. Planet or Plastic? Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/news-plastic-drinking-straw-history-ban

Moore, C. (2022). Plastic pollution. Science. Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/science/plastic-pollution

Parker, L. (2019). The world’s plastic pollution crisis explained. Environment. Retrieved March 6, 2022, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution

Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2018). Plastic Pollution. Our World in Data.

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