As COVID-19 continues to take its toll across much of the planet, lockdowns and other mitigation measures have resulted in an unexpected consequence harming the environment: more plastic waste.
Demand for plastic masks and gloves, single-use plastic items and bottled water has skyrocketed, partly as a result of a precipitous drop in the price of crude oil, which has made it even cheaper to churn out disposable plastic products.
As plastic waste rises, the environment suffers
Needless to say, the increase in plastic waste has worried environmentalists and politicians alike across the European Union, which alone generates some 26 million tons of plastic waste each year. “We are concerned about [the] potential disruption of the markets for recycled plastics caused by the low prices of crude oil, and also about littering of disposable masks and gloves,” explained Virginijus Sinkevicius, the European Union’s Environment Commissioner.
Worse: less than a third of plastic waste in the EU was recycled even before the pandemic, which has seen several plastic recycling plants temporarily shut down or scale back their operations. This is an especial concern as the EU has pledged to reuse 10 million tons of recycled plastics for new products by 2025.
Nor is the problem of excessive plastic waste fuelled by the pandemic limited to Europe. Countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia have all seen their already massive plastic waste outputs increase even further. Read more…