Just when you thought it was beyond the social and environmental pale, single-use plastic is making a comeback, be it for throwaway facemasks, gloves or shrink-wrapped vegetables. Largely to blame is the coronavirus and the response to ward it off—the masks, gloves and other plastic-based items, many of which are now ending up in our oceans—already strewn with the slow-to-degrade detritus of a constantly growing industry.
Masks, visors, gloves or screens … all are crucial accessories to keep COVID-19 at bay. Other uses are manifold—from hairdressers using throwaway aprons to UN recommendations that airline food be distributed in blister packs to the bubble tents that allow some relatives to visit elderly and sick loved ones, touching them through a transparent plastic film.
Even California has had partially to lay aside its green credentials by dropping for two months a ban on single use plastic bags. In Saudi Arabia, some retail centres insist customers don wear-and-throw gloves. Industry has been quick to highlight plastic’s versatility. In March, one French plastics group stated that “without single use plastic you will no longer have wrapping to protect your food against germs.”
In the United States, the Plastics Industry Association was from March 20 urging that its activities be considered “essential” during lockdown. “Single-use plastics can literally be the difference between life and death,” opined the lobby group’s president Tony Radoszewski, noting that items such as ventilator machines have components made of single-use plastics. He added that “sanitary and convenient” single use plastic bags help protect supermarket employees “from whatever is lurking on reusable bags.”