Is the Plastic Pandemic a Greater Threat to Humankind than COVID-19?

[NNadir]

This is a question asked by the authors of this paper I came across in my general reading today: Is the Plastic Pandemic a Greater Threat to Humankind than COVID-19? Abhimanyu Raj Shekhar, Arvind Kumar, Ravuri Syamsai, Xingke Cai, and Vilas G. Pol ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2022 10 (10), 3150-3154

Some text from the paper:

...Denaturing the Nature: Plastic Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The worldwide spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus led us to the unending COVID-19 pandemic in the present world, predominantly attributed to the abuse of nature by us, that vastly amplified its fatality, economy, and ecology. As a figurative connection, humanity in the past invaded the habitat of viruses and bacteria to accumulate their plastic waste, and therefore the COVID-19 pandemic has now invaded our livelihood. Amidst the established expedited number of global cases, the overlooked focal point of the event has constantly been the amplification in the amount of plastic waste generated in the form of medical waste, viz., face masks and plastic shields, diagnosis equipment, PPE kits, medicinal syringes, etc. This specified form is characterized as single utility plastic, the production and disposal of which have exponentially magnified during the stay-at-home phase of institutionalized lockdown due to the outbreak of Coronavirus disease. Microanalyzing the impact at a country-level, the research study by Law et al. presents the data until the year 2016 where the USA generated a maximum plastic waste of 42 million metric tons. (9) Connecting the present statistical information with the study conducted by Borrelle et al., the planetary threat of plastic pollution is bound to increase exponentially, particularly amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, surpassing the efforts to reduce the plastic footprint. Substantiating this threat of plastic growth, an estimation of the daily worldwide plastic waste generation of 1.6 million tons from the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic leads us to more than 900 million tons of total plastic waste generated in 2 years of the pandemic. (10) With the occurrence of COVID-19 among people rise close to 376 million, the researchers assert that the economic, public health, and behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have transformed plastic waste production, composition, and treatment methods in unquantified ways across the globe, majorly accounted for by the medical-use-based plastic, establishing the gravity with which the world must ensure proper processing of its plastic waste. (11) Conclusively, the use of plastic in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic saved millions of lives; however, the nonsystematized management and disposal of medical waste plastics will emerge as an ecology-threatening polluting material stream in the post-COVID-19 era...

Well someone had to ask this question. Personally, I have been disturbed when walking around and coming across discarded face masks among the plastic wrappers, bottles, shredding bags, etc.

A fun graphic from the paper:



The caption:

Figure 1. Integrating sustainable technology with a segment of policy will strengthen the efforts made toward the global core objective of reducing plastic and converting it into upvalued products. Traversing the road to a sustainable future, the present Red Earth (portrayed as red car) full of plastic waste can be transformed into a near-zero plastic Green Earth (portrayed as green car) via the adoption of the 4R principle of removal–responsibility–reduction–revival, which may provide a fresh perspective to a novel International Treaty on Plastic Waste mitigation and net-zero greenhouse emission plastics. The metaphorical visualization can be seen with the transition in color of the car, representing the state of the planet.

"Near Zero" plastic is right up there with "Net Zero."

We love to chant:

We are very fond of zeros these days, and we chant about them all day long as we go about our daily business, unchanged, day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year, decade to decade.

These first three years of this decade have been remarkable, a plague generating a plastic plague, a self declared "green nation" dependent on gas now switching to coal after funding an unprovoked war of conquest by going "green."

Sigh...

An amusing thing about the graphic is that it recommends "education," as a solution. I spent much of my life thinking that, that "education" would be the answer.

The facts about the utility of "education" are in:

You can lead a crowd to school, but you can't make them read, and you can make them to pretend to read, but you can't make them think.

Chanting works better.

Chant after me: "Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero..."

Do it long enough and you'll get there.

[Bobstandard]

1. Agriculture is huge into plastic

Plastic is used heavily in agriculture your strawberries grow in raised rows that are covered in plastic. Nascent berries are planted through the plastic then grow above it, the better to keep them from getting messy from the dirt. Lettuce, peppers, parsley cilantros, same. Raspberries, blackberries are grown in hoop houses. In satellite pictures from space the vast expanses of hoop houses, hundreds of acres, look like lakes. Once harvested they find their way into plastic boxes, blister packs, bags, or trays that are wrapped in cellophane. Have you seen an apple, orange, pear lately that didn’t have a little plastic label with a micro barcode on it?

The ag industry, especially big ag, is hooked on plastic. Getting them off it will be tough with many consequences.

[Bobstandard]

2. I posted this wit an extreme sense of depression. Nt

[NNadir]

3. Yes, I've seen that in lots of places. It's very disturbing.

[nitpicker]

4. Blame the stores too

They use the stickers to tell which variety is being bought.

It's not like farmers' markets where the seller can tell if someone is buying Red Delicious or Gala apples.