The pandemic shook the entire world, and the environment was no exception, with thousands of tons of covid-associated plastic thrown into nature. Was the virus the true cause, though? If we look back to the pre-pandemic past, we will see the first harbingers of the disaster early before – those are preconditions that stem from emotions and a thirst for convenience, rather than from common sense and an eye to the future.
The year 2020 was to be the year when new restrictions on plastic use would come into force in various countries. The European Union, which had been gradually phasing out certain types of plastic products and packaging since 2019, planned to impose restrictions on the use of plastic containers. In the US, over 20 states had banned single-use disposable shopping bags and food containers. The world was taking a turn away from plastic to environmentally friendly materials, but then the coronavirus pandemic came.
The situation changed dramatically. Governments relaxed or temporarily abolished bans on plastic. Recycling programs in many countries were reduced or temporarily phased out, and many recycling plants ceased operation during lockdown periods.
Just over a year later, scientists assessed the environmental impact of the pandemic and found that by the end of August 2021, more than eight million tons of plastic waste associated with the COVID-19 crisis had been generated worldwide. This was mainly due to the increased demand for single-use protective equipment and testing materials, as well as the introduction of lockdowns and restrictions. There had also been a marked growth in e-commerce and, consequently, piling up volumes of disposable packaging. All this resulted in greater plastic pollution.
The word ‘greater’ is the key here. The pandemic did not initiate the plastic catastrophe, but only exacerbated it. The environmental consequences resulting from the virus have simply indicated a lack of willingness to move away from the material. We can see now that a part of the problem is not that plastic is irreplaceable; rather, it’s about resorting to half-baked decisions. With the advent of the coronavirus disease, all kinds of one-off plastic things rapidly come back into vogue and were promoted as a safer choice. In response, more than a hundred scientists, doctors, and environmental activists issued a statement saying that reusable containers, mugs, bottles, and other items could be used safely during a pandemic, as long as basic hygiene was observed, but this couldn’t stop the plastic wave: voices calling to put the skids on the environmental disaster were barely heard in the news flow.
One of the less obvious but most telling examples of this has been money. Remember when, in the very beginning, cash was labeled unsafe? It turned out, eventually, that banknotes are not a breeding ground for germs and are not very conducive to the spread of the most airborne virus in general. Nevertheless, plastic cards and cashless payments are still promoted as safe – and this does direct harm to the environment. More than six billion plastic cards are produced worldwide every year, to which, incidentally, plastic banknotes are rapidly being added.
Opting for cashless, we fall into a mental trap. We have been taught that reusability is good, and it seems very rational to think that a card or a plastic note with a few years of service life is environmentally friendly. But can we compare the two or three years in your wallets with the decades of subsequent decomposing in the environment once a card expires or a plastic banknote is taken out of circulation?
Approximately 5.7 million tons of plastic cards end up in landfills every single year, from where plastic makes its way into the soil, air, and water, and into the bodies of every living thing on the planet. What’s more, plastic bills also produce more greenhouse emissions than their paper counterparts: back in 2019, UK-based financial service provider Evergreen Finance London compared polymer versus paper bank and found that the new polymer five-pound notes release 8.77 kg of C02, almost three times more than previous paper notes. That, despite their longer lifespan, correlates to 2.76kg of extra C02 emissions over a lifetime. Thus, statements that plastic banknotes are durable, cleaner, securer, and greener than those made of natural materials look doubtful, to say the least.
The use of plastic means of payment skyrocketed during the pandemic, which, however, couldn’t protect us still: a study by American scientists found that the virus lives longer on plastic than on paper banknotes. “This pandemic has been infamous for people making decisions with no data,” said one of the study authors, Richard Robison. “We have these people just saying things and massive numbers of organizations just follow it blindly without any data. It turns out in this case, they went precisely the wrong direction.” Not only these actions facilitated the spread of the virus, but also had devastating ecological consequences.
This is just one example of the fallacy of plastic. Virtually every industry has already found an excuse for its use, laying various traps for consumers to accept the use of plastic as an incidental result of humanity’s development. These justifications often play on our basic needs, such as the need for safety from the money example above, or the fear of hunger that is heavily used in another ‘plastic’ industry, agriculture.
Among the many threats during the pandemic was a warning of shrinking global food production because of the restrictions imposed. Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, the response was an increase in the use of agri-plastic: the industry, shaky at the dawn of the crisis, quickly recovered and began to grow dramatically in response to the fears of famine.
The agricultural plastic films market has boomed, a study by 360 Research Reports shows. On the one hand, its use is justified, says the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), but also notes that the use of plastic in agriculture poses a serious risk to the planet. By the end of 2021, the second year of the raging virus, more microplastic had accumulated in soils than in the oceans, the organization adds, noting that the small particles are consequently absorbed by animals and humans through the food, causing diseases and even death.
Only a small proportion of plastic in the industry is recycled. Most of the material is incinerated, buried, or simply thrown away, which does not, however, stop its use: fear eclipses all environmental arguments. And, as with plastic money, we “feed” those of our demons that shout loudest, without regard to the consequences, says Jonathan Leake, Professor at the University of Sheffield in the UK: “We are currently adding large amounts of these unnatural materials into agricultural soils without understanding their long-term effects… We need to remove the plastics [from these] before they are added to land, as it is impossible to remove them afterwards.”
The cases above are just a few examples of the environmental disaster that plastic brought upon us. The pandemic was not the real reason for the ocean of plastic that swept the world: we were calling it on ourselves long before the virus appeared, making consistent choices in favour of easier and more convenient solutions. All plastic quick fixes, whether convenient packaging or quickly installed greenhouses are adding up to the price which we and our children will have to pay very soon. This bill cannot be paid with plastic banknotes, either: in return, we have to give up clean water, air, a safe living environment, and our health.
