The Coronavirus pandemic is creating a growing waste crisis even as we see images of the earth’s environment clearing from less pollution. A few months into the crisis, and the numbers are staggering. Kim Overstreet Jun 29th, 2020 According to a June 22 article by The Economist, the U.S. consumption of single-use plastic may have grown by 250-300% since the beginning of the pandemic. Consider these numbers: Grand View Research projects the global disposable-mask market will grow from an estimated $800M in 2019 to $166B in 2020; Amazon had approximately 2.5 billion customers visit in March alone, an increase of 65% from 2019; Uber Eats first-quarter sales were up 54% from 2019; and, more than 25% of China’s physical goods were bought online during first-quarter 2020, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. All of these figures add up to an increase in plastic and packaging. And to add fuel to the proverbial fire, the oil market crash early in the year made plastic cheaper to produce, which in turn is a disincentive to use recycled materials.    

Originally posted 4/13/20

  Even in normal times recycling faced challenges. According to a February Packaging World article on recycling, the majority of critical recycling issues in the U.S. are related to sorting and management of discarded plastics, because the capacity and capability of recycling centers is not adequate for the amount of recycling needed. And now many recyclers are closing shop during the pandemic, and even more waste is headed to landfills or incineration.   Consumer compliance and cost are other issues. With the pandemic, the amount of single use plastic and packaging is growing (think take out containers from all of the closed restaurants, water bottles and other wrapped items purchased by a virus-wary public, and a massive growth in medical waste), and if not disposed of properly by the consumer, will head for the landfill. Amazon and other e-retailers are hiring employees to keep up with the demand of consumers who are staying home and ordering what they need, and all of this additional e-commerce requires additional secondary packaging which must be properly disposed of.   Recycling has long had issues with financial feasibility. A ton of low-grade mixed plastics in CA would fetch $20 in 2017, but in 2018 it cost $10 to dispose of the same ton of mixed plastics. In 2018 China stopped purchasing the U.S. recyclable materials, increasing the amount of material that needed to be processed locally.   A pandemic-influenced drop in oil prices makes plastic even cheaper to produce, and according to a recent Wired article, as the Coronavirus has taken a toll on the price of oil, it will no longer “make economic sense for a company to process and sell recycled materials if they end up being more expensive than the virgin plastic another company is making.”   The Wired article quotes Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, who says that lightweighting plastic bottles – while saving money for the manufacturer – is also creating a product that “becomes progressively less profitable for a garbage company to bother recycling.”   Like so many things, the near-term outlook for recycling and waste-processing will need to recover from the pandemic’s wave, but the future still has hope. According to a new report on Sustainability from PMMI Business Intelligence, the global sustainable packaging market is expected to grew at a CAGR of approximately 6% by 2025, reaching $280 billion for packaging that is recyclable, biodegradable, compostable or defined as green.

The Coronavirus pandemic is creating a growing waste crisis even as we see images of the earth’s environment clearing from less pollution. A few months into the crisis, and the numbers are staggering. Kim Overstreet Jun 29th, 2020 According to a June 22 article by The Economist, the U.S. consumption of single-use plastic may have grown by 250-300% since the beginning of the pandemic. Consider these numbers: Grand View Research projects the global disposable-mask market will grow from an estimated $800M in 2019 to $166B in 2020; Amazon had approximately 2.5 billion customers visit in March alone, an increase of 65% from 2019; Uber Eats first-quarter sales were up 54% from 2019; and, more than 25% of China’s physical goods were bought online during first-quarter 2020, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. All of these figures add up to an increase in plastic and packaging. And to add fuel to the proverbial fire, the oil market crash early in the year made plastic cheaper to produce, which in turn is a disincentive to use recycled materials.    

Originally posted 4/13/20

  Even in normal times recycling faced challenges. According to a February Packaging World article on recycling, the majority of critical recycling issues in the U.S. are related to sorting and management of discarded plastics, because the capacity and capability of recycling centers is not adequate for the amount of recycling needed. And now many recyclers are closing shop during the pandemic, and even more waste is headed to landfills or incineration.   Consumer compliance and cost are other issues. With the pandemic, the amount of single use plastic and packaging is growing (think take out containers from all of the closed restaurants, water bottles and other wrapped items purchased by a virus-wary public, and a massive growth in medical waste), and if not disposed of properly by the consumer, will head for the landfill. Amazon and other e-retailers are hiring employees to keep up with the demand of consumers who are staying home and ordering what they need, and all of this additional e-commerce requires additional secondary packaging which must be properly disposed of.   Recycling has long had issues with financial feasibility. A ton of low-grade mixed plastics in CA would fetch $20 in 2017, but in 2018 it cost $10 to dispose of the same ton of mixed plastics. In 2018 China stopped purchasing the U.S. recyclable materials, increasing the amount of material that needed to be processed locally.   A pandemic-influenced drop in oil prices makes plastic even cheaper to produce, and according to a recent Wired article, as the Coronavirus has taken a toll on the price of oil, it will no longer “make economic sense for a company to process and sell recycled materials if they end up being more expensive than the virgin plastic another company is making.”   The Wired article quotes Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle, who says that lightweighting plastic bottles – while saving money for the manufacturer – is also creating a product that “becomes progressively less profitable for a garbage company to bother recycling.”   Like so many things, the near-term outlook for recycling and waste-processing will need to recover from the pandemic’s wave, but the future still has hope. According to a new report on Sustainability from PMMI Business Intelligence, the global sustainable packaging market is expected to grew at a CAGR of approximately 6% by 2025, reaching $280 billion for packaging that is recyclable, biodegradable, compostable or defined as green.

Where we are, how we got here and is there a good alternative   Disposable diapers are amazing. Your child’s waste is contained. You see it for only a few moments (hopefully) and then you close up the diaper. Poof! Gone from your thoughts and into the trash can or Diaper Genie. The invention of disposable diapers was a miracle of convenience for parents and it seems that the world has not looked back. No more washing poop from cloth diapers. After all, hasn’t society evolved past cloth diapers? But let’s stop and consider the impact of moving to disposable diapers. An average baby uses between eight and twelve diapers per day in the first year. That equates to just over 3,500 diapers for one baby in one year and a total of more than 7,000 through potty training. For one tiny human. The numbers are staggering, but is it enough to consider alternatives. Is there even a good alternative? Let’s look at how we got here and what initiatives are cropping up to tackle the solution of diaper waste. History of Disposable Diapers Before the 1960s, parents had no choice but to cloth diaper their babies. Proctor and Gamble introduced Pampers in 1961 as the first disposable diaper. After years of tri-folding diapers and securing them using safety pins, mothers and other caretakers had the convenience of disposable diapers. They were suddenly free from the burden of additional wash cycles. The company aggressively advertised its diapers and the brand has become a household name. In Belgium, for example, “pamper” is even synonymous with the Dutch word for diaper. Vintage Pampers commercials from the 1970s are still available online. At the end of one video, a mother who just discovered disposable diapers says: “Okay, hunny, it looks like you are going to be a happier baby from now on…and I’m going to be a happier mommy.” We have come a long way from those first disposables. The technology has advanced significantly. Diapers started to have double gussets for fewer leaks, tabs that could be refastened, and super absorbent polymers. Introduced in 1984, super absorbent polymers can hold many more times their weight in water, meaning a drier baby and fewer diaper changes. Without a doubt, diapers are quite an engineering feat. If you have any doubt, watch the short video below.   An Explosion of Choice Diaper choice has exploded. Walmart.com carries 15 different disposable diaper brands, with some of the major brands marketing multiple types of diapers under the same brand. Amazon.com carries additional brands, including a few niche brands, like Honest Company. We have also seen the rise of store-brand disposable diapers, which provide a cheap alternative to name brands. It seems that each supermarket and pharmacy chain sells its own white label brand. In the U.S., for example, Aldi sells its store-brand pack of diapers for about 11 cents per diaper. These are a blessing for families just trying to get by or for cost-conscious parents. In my experience, these diapers work just as well as name brands, like Pampers and Luvs, but for full disclosure, my testing of name brands has been very limited. Many brands have developed premium diapers carrying one or more of the following descriptors: eco-friendly, bio-based, ultra-sensitive, or biodegradable diapers. Some contain natural products (such as bamboo fiber) and most are free from chemical treatment. But just because diapers market themselves as eco-friendly, are they better? In theory, these premium diapers make sense environmentally, but in practice, they may not make much of a difference. We will look at these premium diapers later in this article. Amount of Diapers Used On average, children wear diapers for two to three years until they are potty trained, while some children are potty trained even later. The first few months are intense for diaper-wearing, with babies going through approximately twelve diapers per day. This number decreases until they only go through only a few diapers while they are being potty trained. Based on these numbers and assuming three years until fully potty trained, one baby can go through over 7,600 diapers. Cost of Diapers If you use store brand diapers, expect to pay approximately $1,300 in diapers for each child. This cost is easily doubled by using name brand diapers and even more with premium/eco-friendly diapers. Parents have to be very committed to an environmental purpose to stomach such a high price tag for biodegradable or ecologically friendly diapers. The cost per diaper goes up as the baby advances through the different sizes. This makes sense because the diapers get bigger and there is more material involved, like the super absorbent polymers to suck up all that pee. Sometimes the diaper companies and stores get tricky about this. On a website for a local pharmacy chain, I noticed the price tag of €25 (approximately $27.50) for a pack of diapers. The package price stayed the same for four sizes of diapers, but the amount of diapers in each pack decreases. This is a typical marketing strategy in many industries. It works well in the diaper industry because, by a few months into the baby’s diaper-wearing career, parents usually have a default brand choice when going to a store. Many might not even notice the price going up. Environmental Impact of Disposable Diapers One-time-use diapers were a boon for women’s liberation and convenience, but almost immediately, they became a significant waste stream. By the 1980s, diapers accounted for 1.4% of all municipal waste put into landfills in the United States. Today, disposable diapers accounted for 2.4% of all municipal waste put in landfills, according to the latest report by the EPA (2017). Two percent sounds pretty minimal at first, right? Well, that’s 3.3 million tons of diapers each year. Based on my calculations, if this would only be baby diapers, 20 billion diapers end up in a landfill each year, plus another 4.9 billion diapers burned. Of course, these numbers from the EPA include some adult diapers, but the split is not clear. The numbers add up quickly in every household. Remember those 7,600 diapers for each child? That is the volume of 20 bathtubs and the weight of a small-sized car, as shown in the infographic below. It’s not just the amount of waste that’s concerning. Many people worry about the toxic chemicals and untreated waste released from diapers into the environment as they sit in landfills. However, modern landfills are designed to prevent contamination of groundwater, but this concern is real for diapers that don’t make it into landfills and are littered into nature, being exposed to the elements. Another concern is environmental impacts upstream of diaper usage, for the manufacturing of the diapers and their raw materials. Basically, a lot of trees and oil. Trees are used for wood pulp in the diaper, oil is used for the plastics in the diapers and their packaging, and water and energy are consumed in the manufacturing process. Alternatives to Disposable Diapers Okay, now that you are officially depressed, let’s talk about what can be done to combat the growing waste of disposable diapers. Three main alternatives exist to decrease the number of disposable diapers used by a child. 1. Eco-Friendly/Biodegradable Diapers — Perhaps the most mainstream of the three is choosing to buy eco-friendly diapers that have a higher composition of biodegradable materials. Now, the jury is out on whether these diapers have a huge benefit to the environment. After all, most still end up in a landfill. One thing is clear is that it is a huge hit to your wallet, costing you up to 3x more than buying store brand diapers. These diapers are meant to have less of an environmental impact during manufacturing and after disposal, but how much depends on the brand. Some diapers within this category are 100% biodegradable and compostable, but some can be as low as 65% biodegradable and still contain plastic. (By comparison, regular diapers are said to be only 25–35% biodegradable.) The sad truth is that most parents will just throw these diapers in the trash and then, “biodegradable” means nothing. If these diapers go in the same waste stream as other diapers — which most likely will — they end up in landfills. Starved of much oxygen and sunlight in the landfill, these eco-friendly diapers will most likely take just as long to decompose as basic diapers. Both eco-friendly and basic diapers can be composted, in different proportions. So what does this actually mean? If parents separate the inner filling (cellulose and super absorbent polymers) from the plastic, this filler material can be put in a compost pile or bin. Mixed loosely with other compost and soil, the diaper filling can break down within a few months. Only wet/pee diapers should be composted. Poopy diapers shouldn’t be composted because they contain bacteria. Even with only the wet diapers, since this is not an industrial composting process subjected to high heat, the resulting compost should only be used for non-edible purposes (plants, trees, and flowers). But since the composting process takes time and effort, most premium diapers will still end up in the same waste stream as other diapers. 2. Cloth Diapers — Another alternative to disposable diapers is to use cloth diapers for your child. The most common form of modern cloth diapering involves three pieces: a cloth diaper with plastic snaps or Velcro, an absorbent inner liner, and an optional disposable liner. There are also hybrid solutions with a cloth outer layer and a disposable absorbent liner, such as gDiapers. Some parents also choose to cloth diaper part of the time, still using a disposable diaper during the nights and when traveling. Although still producing diaper waste, using cloth diapers for part of the time can easily cut diaper usage by more than half. 3. Potty train a child early — This last alternative can either be a strategy of potty training a child a few months earlier or potty training them from a very early age. The latter is called Elimination Communication or Natural Infant Hygiene, which was popularized by Ingrid Bauer in her “Diaper Free” book. And I know most parents are rolling their eyes and sarcastically thinking, good luck potty training early! It is an alternative, though. Is Diaper Recycling an Alternative? There is some light at the end of the tunnel — diaper recycling. I don’t mention this as one of the alternatives above because it is still in its infant stage. In my research, I came across two main diaper reuse projects — TerraCycle and FaterSMART. TerraCycle is a New Jersey-based recycling company. Partnering with DYPER, a subscription-based diaper service, TerraCycle composts subscribers’ dirty diapers via mail-in boxes. The service only sells bamboo-based, compostable diapers and the finished compost is used for vegetation along highways. FaterSMART is a joint venture with Procter & Gamble (the company that produces Pampers) and Angelini. It has established a pilot recycling plant in Italy that recycles used absorbent hygiene products, including dirty diapers. The process sanitizes the diapers and recovers plastic, cellulose, and super absorbent polymers. However, diapers don’t get recycled into new diapers. Like most other recycling processes, recycled material can only be used in products of lesser quality, a concept known as “downcycling.” The recovered super absorbent polymers have less absorbency and the recovered plastic has a lesser quality than the original. In theory, absorbent material from recycled diapers can go into absorbent products for pets (like cat litter and dog pee pads), disposable bed liners, or fiber additives in concrete. The plastic can be mixed with other materials to make plastic wood-like products (park benches and pallets), roof tiles, tubing, and other products. Other initiatives exist around the world. Amsterdam has twelve diaper recycling bins and the used diapers get sent to the FaterSMART plant in Italy. TinyTots is a San Francisco-based pickup service for compostable diapers. Universities and private companies are experimenting in diaper recycling technology, such as in Taiwan and the Netherlands, but many of these projects have yet to be realized.  

Living Proof, a company that uses scientific innovation and human ingenuity to tackle problems big and small, and TerraCycle, have joined forces to ensure that all Living Proof hair care packaging and spent aerosol cans are diverted from landfills and sustainably recycled nationwide. “We are pleased to count Living Proof among a select group of luxury hair care brands that offer consumer-facing recycling programs that actively address this large category of waste,” said TerraCycle chief executive officer and founder, Tom Szaky. “Through the introduction of these innovative recycling programs, Living Proof is giving their consumers a powerful, sustainable option to divert their empty hair care and aerosol packaging from landfills, as well as demonstrate their respect for the environment through the products they choose to include in their hair care regime.”   Through the partnership, consumers are invited to recycle their empty packaging in two ways:  

• Living Proof Aerosol Recycling Program: Participants wishing to recycle their empty Living Proof aerosol cans, including trial and sample sizes, are invited to sign up on the program page at www.terracycle.com/living-proof-aerosol. When ready to ship, following the shipping instructions provided on the program page, download a free shipping label and the included “Limited Quantity” label. Package the empty aerosol containers in the box of your choice and send it to TerraCycle for recycling.
• Living Proof Recycling Program: To recycle all other Living Proof product packaging, including trial and sample sizes, participants are invited to visit the non-aerosol program page at www.terracycle.com/living-proof.

  When ready to ship their packaging waste, simply download a free shipping label, package the empty hair care packaging in the box of your choice and send it to TerraCycle for recycling. With every shipment sent to TerraCycle through either program, consumers can earn points that can be used for charitable gifts or converted to cash and donated to the non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice. Both Living Proof recycling programs are open to any interested individual, school, office or community organization.   Published in the June 2020 Edition

Dr. Meghan McGuire, an assistant professor of English at the University of Lynchburg, has launched “Writers Recycle,” an on-campus initiative to recycle used writing instruments. Through the program, used mechanical and wooden pencils, and pens, markers, highlighters, and their caps will be collected and recycled.   McGuire started the program with a $500 “Green Grant” awarded by Keep Virginia Beautiful in June. Zero-waste boxes, purchased with grant funds, will be placed in the Wilmer Writing Center, Knight-Capron Library, and other high-traffic areas.   The used writing instruments will be sent to TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based waste management company, for recycling.   McGuire would like to see the project become a collaboration between the English and Environmental Science and Sustainability departments and the University’s Sustainability Society.   She also hopes the whole campus community will get onboard. “I hope the entire University community will become involved in this recycling initiative, and I hope it will encourage people to examine other unexpected forms of waste that we can recycle or reuse,” she said.   “My personal goal is to not only recycle these items but to alter my consumer practices to help reduce the waste I produce. For example, I plan to invest in refillable pens.”

PUBLISHED SUN, JUN 28 20209:15 AM EDT Emma Newburger@EMMA_NEWBURGER Amelia Lucas As the country re-opens after months of lockdowns, consumers and restaurants have become more dependent on single-use plastic bags, containers and utensils due to health concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.   Before the start of the outbreak, cities and states were making some progress on banning plastic bags, shifting away from single-use plastic — which ends up sitting in the ocean — to paper or reusable products.   But now, cities and states have delayed or rolled back those bans on plastic bags in fear that reusable products will spread disease. Many retailers are banning customers from bringing reusable bags. And municipalities are scaling back recycling operations due to health concerns.   The surge in single-use plastic is a major blow to the fight against plastic pollution, which is projected to increase by 40% in the next decade, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund.   The problem is especially apparent in the restaurant industry and its increased reliance on food delivery services. Many restaurants, even those that were curbing plastic waste prior to the pandemic, are not limiting the amount of plastic involved in takeout orders.   For instance, popular chain Just Salad was producing reusable bowls that saved more than 75,000 pounds of plastic a year. When the pandemic hit the chain, the company immediately halted the program, shuttered restaurants and pivoted to delivery and pickup — both of which meant using only disposable packaging.   “The environmental fallout is definitely real,” said Sandra Noonan, Just Salad’s chief sustainability officer. The shift by the salad chain is similar to that of many popular restaurants when the pandemic hit, including Starbucks and Dunkin’, which stopped letting customers use reusable mugs.   Green Restaurant Association CEO Michael Oshman said that it’s too early to predict how much more waste has been generated due to the pandemic.   But most local economies don’t have the infrastructure in place for reusable or compostable takeout packaging. And environmentalists warn the pandemic threatens to scare consumers away from reusable products just as progress was being made.   “The plastic industry seized on the pandemic as an opportunity to try to convince people that single use plastic is necessary to keep us safe, and that reusables are dirty and dangerous,” said John Hocevar, ocean campaign director at Greenpeace. “The fact that neither of these things is supported by the best available science was irrelevant.”   “Exploitation of Covid-19 fears ultimately made people less safe, distracting attention from the need to focus on the risk of airborne transmission and critical measures like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing,” he added.   A major challenge will be reinstating zero waste policies when the pandemic finally subsides, though there is opportunity for delivery services to establish themselves as zero waste options and develop returnable or reusable systems.   But one fix could be relatively easy for restaurants to adopt: asking customers to opt in if they want plastic utensils with their pickup or delivery orders, which typically include a slew of single-use plastic products.   Just Salad implemented the change to its own online-ordering platform around the start of lockdowns and said it saved them money and reduced utensil use on those orders by 88%. The chain’s sustainability officer is talking with third-party delivery services to make the shift universal. While Oshman urges restaurants to try to find better solutions than single-use plastics — like using disposable packaging made with high post-consumer waste — he also said that operators can look to make changes elsewhere to mitigate the environmental cost of business.   “There’s a lot of things that are still in your control still. For example, what kind of cleaners are you using to disinfect everything?” he said.   Oshman also suggested generating a QR code so customers can read the menus on their smartphones rather than disposable menus. And restaurateurs can recycle the disposable masks and gloves shed by their employees through TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycler that collects non-recyclable waste and turns it into raw materials for manufacturers.   “The delays and reversals in moving away from single use plastics are unfortunate and counterproductive, but they will be very short lived,” Hocevar said.   “As our understanding of the impacts of plastic on the health of our planet and our communities continues to grow, it is increasingly clear that we need to quickly move away from single-use plastics,” he added.

( ENSPIRE Health & Wellness ) Vegan, Non-Toxic and Cruelty-Free Home and Body Care Product Line Sea Witch Botanicals Advocates for Clean Waterways and Personal Health

 

ENSPIRE Contributor: Rosa Linda Fallon

  Growing up on the Pacific Northwest Coastline, Alesia Hall was inspired by the mythological Sea Witch who was known as the purveyor of the seas.  After learning more about the toxic chemicals found in many products that were harming the oceans and sea life combined with her love of the waterways, Hall sought to bring non-toxic, plant-based personal care products to the marketplace.  She wanted to create an alternative home and personal care product offering natural, environmentally-friendly, and cruelty-free solutions consumers would feel good about using.   Bringing together her education in massage and aromatherapy and her passion for creating healing remedies, Hall founded Sea Witch Botanicals, a personal care product line that aims to keep the world’s water healthier by providing natural, affordable and non-toxic home and body care products. “There are a lot of unnecessary and harmful ingredients used in soap and cosmetic manufacturing,” Hall says. Synthetic fragrance oils are the most insidious toxic ingredient, according to Hall. These fragrance oils are compiled of hundreds to thousands of industrial-grade ingredients and are only tested and regulated by the companies that manufacture them. Hall says these ingredients never have to be listed on the packaging, and they contain cancer-causing chemical compounds. They can also provoke headaches, asthma, and skin irritation, among other reactions.   With the company’s mission to protect the waterways, it is not enough for them to just use clean ingredients in their products. Sea Witch Botanicals utilizes TerraCycle zero-waste boxes for their disposable gloves and glue sticks, thereby diverting them from ending up in the landfill. The company also has waste sorting stations throughout the facility including compost, recycling, and clean plastics.   Their commitment to sorting their waste has led to being able to divert ninety percent of production waste from ending up in the landfill, according to the company’s Annual Waste Audits done by Sustainable Connections, a nonprofit partner.   Sea Witch Botanicals also supports charities including Earthjustice and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to help promote awareness, research, and protection of the environment.   Founder Alesia Hall said she is passionate about supporting Earthjustice because “the earth needs a good lawyer.”  Earthjustice is a nonprofit organization that works to accomplish legislation for the protection of the planet.  Hall said the company also supports The Environmental Working Group (EWG) because its mission is directly linked to Sea Witch Botanicals’ pursuit of educating consumers on health concerns connected to many toxic ingredients used in home and personal care products.   Hall aspires to see Sea Witch Botanicals as an industry force for good to help drive the demand for ocean plastics to be upcycled in the packaging industry. Between the containers, raw goods are transported in, to the small plastic spray tops in finished goods, the plastic already exists in our environment to produce this new packaging.   “Rather than creating more virgin plastic in our supply chain, we’d like to help make ocean plastics more accessible for manufacturers in all industries,” Hall says. “This is a part of our overall mission to support a zero-waste production facility and product line.”   Upon the onset of the pandemic, Alesia formulated a new product, Fortifying Hand Soap featuring antimicrobial eucalyptus, lavender, and orange essential oils. The soap is embedded with a biodegradable print “Keep Calm & Wash On.” The company also created a blog “How to Properly Wash Your Hands” along with videos and infographics on their social media to help stakeholders understand just how important this action is to combat the virus.   As for what’s next for Sea Witch Botanicals, customers can be on the lookout for new scents coming in the next few months.  Their regular seasonal scent Krampus launches in the fall, as always. The company is also looking to expand its bulk and zero-packaging offerings for products such as their best-selling home helpers, Canary Clean & Produce Wash.

As the country re-opens after months of lockdowns, consumers and restaurants have become more dependent on single-use plastic bags, containers and utensils due to health concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.   Before the start of the outbreak, cities and states were making some progress on banning plastic bags, shifting away from single-use plastic — which ends up sitting in the ocean — to paper or reusable products.   But now, cities and states have delayed or rolled back those bans on plastic bags in fear that reusable products will spread disease. Many retailers are banning customers from bringing reusable bags. And municipalities are scaling back recycling operations due to health concerns.   The surge in single-use plastic is a major blow to the fight against plastic pollution, which is projected to increase by 40% in the next decade, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund.   The problem is especially apparent in the restaurant industry and its increased reliance on food delivery services. Many restaurants, even those that were curbing plastic waste prior to the pandemic, are not limiting the amount of plastic involved in takeout orders.   For instance, popular chain Just Salad was producing reusable bowls that saved more than 75,000 pounds of plastic a year. When the pandemic hit the chain, the company immediately halted the program, shuttered restaurants and pivoted to delivery and pickup — both of which meant using only disposable packaging.   “The environmental fallout is definitely real,” said Sandra Noonan, Just Salad’s chief sustainability officer.       The shift by the salad chain is similar to that of many popular restaurants when the pandemic hit, including Starbucks and Dunkin’, which stopped letting customers use reusable mugs.   Green Restaurant Association CEO Michael Oshman said that it’s too early to predict how much more waste has been generated due to the pandemic.   But most local economies don’t have the infrastructure in place for reusable or compostable takeout packaging. And environmentalists warn the pandemic threatens to scare consumers away from reusable products just as progress was being made.   “The plastic industry seized on the pandemic as an opportunity to try to convince people that single use plastic is necessary to keep us safe, and that reusables are dirty and dangerous,” said John Hocevar, ocean campaign director at Greenpeace. “The fact that neither of these things is supported by the best available science was irrelevant.”   “Exploitation of Covid-19 fears ultimately made people less safe, distracting attention from the need to focus on the risk of airborne transmission and critical measures like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing,” he added.   A major challenge will be reinstating zero waste policies when the pandemic finally subsides, though there is opportunity for delivery services to establish themselves as zero waste options and develop returnable or reusable systems.   But one fix could be relatively easy for restaurants to adopt: asking customers to opt in if they want plastic utensils with their pickup or delivery orders, which typically include a slew of single-use plastic products.   Just Salad implemented the change to its own online-ordering platform around the start of lockdowns and said it saved them money and reduced utensil use on those orders by 88%. The chain’s sustainability officer is talking with third-party delivery services to make the shift universal.     While Oshman urges restaurants to try to find better solutions than single-use plastics — like using disposable packaging made with high post-consumer waste — he also said that operators can look to make changes elsewhere to mitigate the environmental cost of business.   “There’s a lot of things that are still in your control still. For example, what kind of cleaners are you using to disinfect everything?” he said.   Oshman also suggested generating a QR code so customers can read the menus on their smartphones rather than disposable menus. And restaurateurs can recycle the disposable masks and gloves shed by their employees through TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycler that collects non-recyclable waste and turns it into raw materials for manufacturers.   “The delays and reversals in moving away from single use plastics are unfortunate and counterproductive, but they will be very short lived,” Hocevar said.   “As our understanding of the impacts of plastic on the health of our planet and our communities continues to grow, it is increasingly clear that we need to quickly move away from single-use plastics,” he added.

As the country re-opens after months of lockdowns, consumers and restaurants have become more dependent on single-use plastic bags, containers and utensils due to health concerns prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.   Before the start of the outbreak, cities and states were making some progress on banning plastic bags, shifting away from single-use plastic — which ends up sitting in the ocean — to paper or reusable products.   But now, cities and states have delayed or rolled back those bans on plastic bags in fear that reusable products will spread disease. Many retailers are banning customers from bringing reusable bags. And municipalities are scaling back recycling operations due to health concerns.   The surge in single-use plastic is a major blow to the fight against plastic pollution, which is projected to increase by 40% in the next decade, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund.   The problem is especially apparent in the restaurant industry and its increased reliance on food delivery services. Many restaurants, even those that were curbing plastic waste prior to the pandemic, are not limiting the amount of plastic involved in takeout orders.   For instance, popular chain Just Salad was producing reusable bowls that saved more than 75,000 pounds of plastic a year. When the pandemic hit the chain, the company immediately halted the program, shuttered restaurants and pivoted to delivery and pickup — both of which meant using only disposable packaging.   “The environmental fallout is definitely real,” said Sandra Noonan, Just Salad’s chief sustainability officer.       The shift by the salad chain is similar to that of many popular restaurants when the pandemic hit, including Starbucks and Dunkin’, which stopped letting customers use reusable mugs.   Green Restaurant Association CEO Michael Oshman said that it’s too early to predict how much more waste has been generated due to the pandemic.   But most local economies don’t have the infrastructure in place for reusable or compostable takeout packaging. And environmentalists warn the pandemic threatens to scare consumers away from reusable products just as progress was being made.   “The plastic industry seized on the pandemic as an opportunity to try to convince people that single use plastic is necessary to keep us safe, and that reusables are dirty and dangerous,” said John Hocevar, ocean campaign director at Greenpeace. “The fact that neither of these things is supported by the best available science was irrelevant.”   “Exploitation of Covid-19 fears ultimately made people less safe, distracting attention from the need to focus on the risk of airborne transmission and critical measures like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing,” he added.   A major challenge will be reinstating zero waste policies when the pandemic finally subsides, though there is opportunity for delivery services to establish themselves as zero waste options and develop returnable or reusable systems.   But one fix could be relatively easy for restaurants to adopt: asking customers to opt in if they want plastic utensils with their pickup or delivery orders, which typically include a slew of single-use plastic products.   Just Salad implemented the change to its own online-ordering platform around the start of lockdowns and said it saved them money and reduced utensil use on those orders by 88%. The chain’s sustainability officer is talking with third-party delivery services to make the shift universal.     While Oshman urges restaurants to try to find better solutions than single-use plastics — like using disposable packaging made with high post-consumer waste — he also said that operators can look to make changes elsewhere to mitigate the environmental cost of business.   “There’s a lot of things that are still in your control still. For example, what kind of cleaners are you using to disinfect everything?” he said.   Oshman also suggested generating a QR code so customers can read the menus on their smartphones rather than disposable menus. And restaurateurs can recycle the disposable masks and gloves shed by their employees through TerraCycle, a New Jersey-based recycler that collects non-recyclable waste and turns it into raw materials for manufacturers.   “The delays and reversals in moving away from single use plastics are unfortunate and counterproductive, but they will be very short lived,” Hocevar said.   “As our understanding of the impacts of plastic on the health of our planet and our communities continues to grow, it is increasingly clear that we need to quickly move away from single-use plastics,” he added.