Rethinking and optimising plastic waste management under COVID-19 pandemic: Policy solutions based on redesign and reduction of single-use plastics and personal protective equipment
ABSTRACT
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Plastics have been on top of the political agenda in Europe and across the world to reduce plastic leakage and pollution. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted plastic reduction policies at the regional and national levels and induced significant changes in plastic waste management with potential for negative impacts in the environment and human health. This paper provides an overview of plastic policies and discusses the readjustments of these policies during the COVID-19 pandemic along with their potential environmental implications.
The sudden increase in plastic waste and composition due to the COVID-19 pandemic underlines the crucial need to reinforce plastic reduction policies (and to implement them into action without delays), to scale up in innovation for sustainable and green plastics solutions, and to develop dynamic and responsive waste management systems immediately. Policy recommendations and future research directions are discussed.
With public health being the utmost priority, the implications of COVID-19 in the environment remain mostly undervalued. Although the number of studies addressing the environmental impact of COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., in the air quality, carbon footprint) is increasing in a daily basis, it remains unclear the extent of the “physical” impact of plastic pollution during COVID-19 and what will happen in the long-term. The amount of waste generated due to COVID-19 indeed threatens the existing waste management streams, meaning that plastic leakage/pollution may impose severe risks to both environmental and human health. Thus, it is imperative to increase monitoring (aquatic, terrestrial and aerial surveys) of plastic waste under post-COVID-19, around the world. Citizen science (i.e., NGOs) must be incentivised as it would greatly contribute to this cause. Furthermore, studies addressing the fate, behaviour, degradability and effects of PPE (their additives, potential for pathogens transfer, and adsorbent capacity of chemical pollutants) should be prioritised.
I'll start the ball rolling. I was thinking about all of the coronavirus-related Personal Protective Equipment of single or limited use that is being discarded. And my first thought was "Hey, that's got to be putting stress on solid waste incineration and landfill facilities." And then you add on to that, what I think must be a significant increase in the use of disposable packaging for Take Home food and beverages because of the widespread bans on restaurant onsite dining.
But on the other side of the solid waste volume ledger, what about the wider effects of the global and national economic slowdowns, especially, given the current state of play across the entire United States? Is the total volume of solid waste being driven upwards or downwards by the effects of the continuing coronavirus pandemic?
That's as far as my thoughts have taken me on the subject.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 07-04-2020).]
In the early weeks / month of this whole COVID thing... people were totally freaking out. I saw normal people walking around with face shields from Harbor Freight, wearing rubber gloves... makes no sense to me at all. Not like people serving food with rubber gloves, I mean... people driving their cars with rubber gloves on and full face shields.
Of course, all of those rubber gloves ended up /everywhere/ all over the place. They're stuck in gutters, on sidewalks, etc...
It also pisses me off that Amazon ships so much stuff in plastic bubble-pouches. Why can't they be made out of paper with the protective shredded newspaper padding?
Why can't the gloves and all that other stuff be made out of vegetable waste like the "Eco Plastic" utensils that you can get? They aren't that much more money...
All I know about it personally, is that that since I live out in the rural countryside, with no govt or paid for trash pickup, I have to take care of it myself, usually by incineration in a burn barrel. about 90% of all my household (kitchen/bathroom) garbage is plastic. Much of it burns, but a lot of it, depending on what kind of 'plastic' it is, just melts and ends up as a big gob in the bottom of the barrel. A 1976 Wilderness album from C.W. McCall had a song that included the following lyrics...
Yeah, it's only gonna take about a minute or so 'Til the factories blot the sun out You gonna have to turn your lights on just to see And them lights are gonna be neon, sayin' "Fly Our Jets To Paradise" And the whole damn world is gonna be made of styrene
Much of this problem tho, was brought about by the transition from paper packaging to see-thru plastic. Paper packaging was using up to damn many trees is what they said at the time..........
All I know about it personally, is that that since I live out in the rural countryside, with no govt or paid for trash pickup, I have to take care of it myself, usually by incineration in a burn barrel. about 90% of all my household (kitchen/bathroom) garbage is plastic. Much of it burns, but a lot of it, depending on what kind of 'plastic' it is, just melts and ends up as a big gob in the bottom of the barrel.
Snip Much of this problem tho, was brought about by the transition from paper packaging to see-thru plastic. Paper packaging was using up to damn many trees is what they said at the time..........
Which just brings up other environmental issues...... Don’t feel like the “Lone Ranger” tho, I’m just as guilty of burning construction debris.
Rams
[This message has been edited by blackrams (edited 07-05-2020).]
It was just a topic that came to me, for no "great" reason. Is this a topic that's being written about? Like so many theoretical topics in this Internet age--indeed it is.
Not only is there single or limited use PPE to dispose of, but all of the packaging for the PPE that's being used as the PPE moves from factories and fabricators to hospitals and other end users.
I have a mind that's easily boggled.
This forum topic can be taken at face value, but at the same time, I wanted to create a topic that is a send-up of free-ranging online discussion forum topics and messaging.
All I know about it personally, is that that since I live out in the rural countryside, with no govt or paid for trash pickup, I have to take care of it myself, usually by incineration in a burn barrel. about 90% of all my household (kitchen/bathroom) garbage is plastic. Much of it burns, but a lot of it, depending on what kind of 'plastic' it is, just melts and ends up as a big gob in the bottom of the barrel.
Much of this problem tho, was brought about by the transition from paper packaging to see-thru plastic. Paper packaging was using up to damn many trees is what they said at the time..........
I'm not going to criticize... I know it's about convenience, etc... and it doesn't make sense to drive your plastic trash 10+ miles away just to recycle it once a week. But it is frustrating to see so much plastic getting disposed of that way. The fumes are very toxic, and pretty bad for the environment.
It's one of the things I'm pretty happy with that they have here in San Antonio. We had a similar system in South Florida (pioneered by Wayne Huizenga). The recycling grinds everything up, and then uses a series of buoyancy, magnets, and weight to separate the various recycling garbage. Those plastics which cannot be recycled then get pressed to make into plastic lumber, which I know you've seen. But the system works well because it's convenient for the consumer. You basically throw everything into recycling... cans, bottles, paper, plastic, and everything in between.
What's left over is almost nothing... things like bubble-wrap (because they can't be recycled since they can't be shredded and clog up the system), things like Styrofoam, and a lot of food trash. I could take it a step further and put my food trash into a compost (which I used to do)... but too much of a pain at this point, and that biodegrades anyway so no love lost. You obviously don't get that out there...
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Originally posted by rinselberg:
It was just a topic that came to me, for no "great" reason. Is this a topic that's being written about? Like so many theoretical topics in this Internet age--indeed it is.
Not only is there single or limited use PPE to dispose of, but all of the packaging for the PPE that's being used as the PPE moves from factories and fabricators to hospitals and other end users.
I have a mind that's easily boggled.
This forum topic can be taken at face value, but at the same time, I wanted to create a topic that is a send-up of free-ranging online discussion forum topics and messaging.
It's something that's bothered me for a while. It's very frustrating that we don't have some sort of National Recycling Guidelines. I don't mean that the Federal Government has to mandate recycling across the board, but at least to set some guidelines that states and municipalities can strive for.
When I lived in Anne Arundle County, Maryland, a place that should be MORE than capable of being able to handle recycling... they had a bunch of stupid bins where you had to sort everything. The county decided they could no longer afford to pay the trash collectors, so they eliminated trash pickup except for once a week. As it turned out, they basically eliminated recycling too as the service guy told me that they just throw it all into the same truck and they don't actually bother to recycle anything... as he took my recycling bins and dumped them into the truck with the bags of trash. He said they couldn't afford it anymore, but they didn't want to really make an announcement about it.
I've never had taxes so high in my life as I did in Maryland... and the services provided by the city / county / state were the most minimal and worst I'd ever seen in my entire life. I wonder where the money went quite frankly...
There used to be a recycle place here, but they stopped taking plastic several years ago. I think about the same time oil price dropped. They still take cardboard and glass but not plastic.
I came up with a (Slightly crazy) idea where there would be engineered Organisms that would be used at Garbage dumps; Different versions would feed on different types of garbage and then come to a collection spot.....Have one that consumed plastic, one that consumed wood, one that even consumed aluminum......
That was part of an idea for a Twilight zone story I sent to Jordan Peele who is running the new Twilight Zone show......
A man begins to wonder what is going on with the people around him......He suspects that some people are holographic computer animations.....He starts to do research on this, to prove his hypothesis.....And then becomes paranoid as accidents seem to befall people around him, just missing him....A car just like his that a coworker owns has sudden total brake failure, an apartment a block down from his catches fire, etc.
Finally, he decides the only way to prove his theory is with a super computer- but any one he could gain access to (Now) could have been corrupted by the Internet- He needs one that has never been connected to the Internet....After some research, he finds that an abandoned emergency military command center from the cold war has an Older super computer....With enough power to do the necessary calculations from information available on the web. He gains access to it and is able to find the truth...Not only have people been getting replaced by holographic projections.......HE is a projection also!
Possible back story about HOW everyone became projections; Bio-engineered organisms eat different parts of garbage, then are collected and recycled.....One bug eats paper, one eats plastic, one even eats aluminum.....When completely full, they return to a collection point to release what they have collected. But of course, they can mutate and enter human beings wreaking havoc....
End scene; He has the super computer up and running that is separate from the Web.....Not corrupted....He sets it up to answer the questions of just how many people are in fact Holograms....He then has to connect it to the Web to get access to all of the information for it to ascertain the answer....It will only have minutes to do this and answer before it is (Possibly) corrupted by the Web.....
He starts typing his questions and the answers appear on the screen.....
Robertson; "Do you have enough information to answer my question?"
Computer; "Yes"
Robertson; "So are there holographic people?"
Computer; "Yes"
Robertson; "How....How many people are Holograms?"
Computer; "All people are now holograms"
Robertson; "What?! Please repeat!"
Computer; "All people are now holograms"
Robertson reacts with shock "That's insane!" Then types, " I am the only real person in the world?"
Computer; "No"
Robertson stares at the answer on the screen, incredulous......Trying to comprehend what the answer means........Suddenly, he realizes what the computer really means, and as a look of complete shock spreads across his face, his IMAGE fades out...of the room he was in..........
My guess is that the Coronavirus PPE waste is just a tiny amount compared to the average persons waste in the US. No where I ever lived in the US gave any real incentive to recycle as much as possible.
The last tour I did in Korea, I lived in Seoul. The way garbage disposal works there is that you go down to the local store and buy trash bags for whatever part of the city you lived in. You can buy large bags, but they were expensive. You can't use a regular old Hefty bag. I'd normally buy a few small ones that were about the size of a plastic shopping bag. The garbage and recycle was picked up every week. My actual waste for a week would fit in one of those little bags, everything else could be recycled. Given the cost of the garbage bags, there was a financial incentive to recycle as much as possible. They also made it easy too.
Also in Korea, the rate you got charged for for electricity was dependent on how much you use. The bills would have a little graph with a needle. The center would be the average amount a person would use. If your usage was higher than the average person you got charged a higher rate, if you use less then you get a lower rate. So again they gave financial incentives to be more efficient with your power use.
The same with the cost of fuel. There's a reason you don't see massive amounts of large trucks and SUV's in the most of the world. Gas is just too expensive to be feeding these gas guzzlers outside the US.
I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but as a whole the US can do much better than it currently is.
My guess is that the Coronavirus PPE waste is just a tiny amount compared to the average persons waste in the US. No where I ever lived in the US gave any real incentive to recycle as much as possible.
The last tour I did in Korea, I lived in Seoul. The way garbage disposal works there is that you go down to the local store and buy trash bags for whatever part of the city you lived in. You can buy large bags, but they were expensive. You can't use a regular old Hefty bag. I'd normally buy a few small ones that were about the size of a plastic shopping bag. The garbage and recycle was picked up every week. My actual waste for a week would fit in one of those little bags, everything else could be recycled. Given the cost of the garbage bags, there was a financial incentive to recycle as much as possible. They also made it easy too.
I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but as a whole the US can do much better than it currently is.
I wanted to address what you said in the last sentence. The problem (though, not really a problem) with the United States is Federalism. I am a huge supporter of Federalism... but sometimes, the entire country does not agree with what I believe. And... as such, you have sub-par recycling in PA. Living in South Florida with Waste Management, and then also in San Antonio, recycling has been spectacular. As I said above, I dump everything into a blue container... plastic, glass, whatever. I have a brown container for real trash... which is basically (for me) construction waste like chopped up 2x4s, carpet scraps, and things like bubble wrap, styrofoam, etc. Then there's also a green bin for things like plants and food waste (like pizza boxes and food containers that are biodegradable.
My recycling is PACKED, and gets picked up every week. My actual trash is never full, except for the weeks when I'm doing a renovation project. Normally, I have maybe 1 or at the absolute most, 2 bags of normal trash.
But... when I lived in Maryland, my experience was like yours is in PA... recycling was a joke... and turned out they were just throwing it in the trash anyway.
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: I wanted to address what you said in the last sentence. The problem (though, not really a problem) with the United States is Federalism. I am a huge supporter of Federalism... but sometimes, the entire country does not agree with what I believe. And... as such, you have sub-par recycling in PA. Living in South Florida with Waste Management, and then also in San Antonio, recycling has been spectacular. As I said above, I dump everything into a blue container... plastic, glass, whatever. I have a brown container for real trash... which is basically (for me) construction waste like chopped up 2x4s, carpet scraps, and things like bubble wrap, styrofoam, etc. Then there's also a green bin for things like plants and food waste (like pizza boxes and food containers that are biodegradable.
My recycling is PACKED, and gets picked up every week. My actual trash is never full, except for the weeks when I'm doing a renovation project. Normally, I have maybe 1 or at the absolute most, 2 bags of normal trash.
But... when I lived in Maryland, my experience was like yours is in PA... recycling was a joke... and turned out they were just throwing it in the trash anyway.
To be fair, the county I live in (Jefferson) has a few drop off recycle bin locations. One is about 2 miles from me which I pass near by frequently. A few months ago I started using them in an effort to reduce my trash service costs, which was around $23 month, just for trash. The trash service company I found out has a per-bag service in which you buy their bags that are a tan color with their logo and are around 33 gallon in size for $5 bag. I just set them out on the normal pickup day whenever I fill one up. Since I started taking what I can down to the recycle location I found I can go 5 weeks on one bag. So I cut my monthly costs substantially. Plastic is by far the most recycle I have.
I have also lived in Colorado, Alaska, Maryland and South Carolina. Only South Carolina provided a recycle bin, but there was no incentive to use it. Things could have changed in many of these places since I was there. But I base my opinion off my own experiences and as mentioned before, South Korea was better about encouraging people to recycle and be more efficient than anywhere I've been in the US.
Once “the Covid” hit, NY kinda forgot their whole “plastic bag ban”. I’m swimming in plastic bags now, they toss extras in just for fun. The parking lots and roadsides are littered with masks and gloves... I’m in a nytrol heaven (of sorts)
Locally I am not worried about the waste. The local counties have waste to energy solutions in place (incinerators). In my opinion waste to engery is great! it decreases the mass going to a lanfill ~97%, recovers metals (ferrous and non ferrous). When manages correctly there are little polutants....by managed correctly I mean having scrubbers installed on exhaust and injection of natural gas to keep the boiler temperautre in the correct range. As an example the waste to engery faciltiy generates steam, which is transfered to a power generation plant next door. Then there is a lanfill where the soot is put after inceneration...there are methane wells installed in the landfill the methane recovered, burned, pwoer generated and exas steam is sold to the dairy for milk pasturization.
And hey, other states and businesses send their waste in these facilities for destruction in the range of $120 per ton (based on different waste classes) so it net positive for the area. As this is managed correctly there is no negative local enviromental impact.
Don't get me wrong I recycle what is possible, and the recycling in our household is about 2x the volume of trash that we generate.
To be fair, the county I live in (Jefferson) has a few drop off recycle bin locations. One is about 2 miles from me which I pass near by frequently. A few months ago I started using them in an effort to reduce my trash service costs, which was around $23 month, just for trash. The trash service company I found out has a per-bag service in which you buy their bags that are a tan color with their logo and are around 33 gallon in size for $5 bag. I just set them out on the normal pickup day whenever I fill one up. Since I started taking what I can down to the recycle location I found I can go 5 weeks on one bag. So I cut my monthly costs substantially. Plastic is by far the most recycle I have.
I have also lived in Colorado, Alaska, Maryland and South Carolina. Only South Carolina provided a recycle bin, but there was no incentive to use it. Things could have changed in many of these places since I was there. But I base my opinion off my own experiences and as mentioned before, South Korea was better about encouraging people to recycle and be more efficient than anywhere I've been in the US.
I like South Korea... but being a peninsula, there isn't really anywhere for them to put the trash. There isn't anywhere really that's willing to take it, so as a community they have more of an incentive. The US invented this recycling process (for what it's worth), done originally by Waste Management over 20 years ago.
Other than pride of community and desire for clean water / reduce landfill use, I'm not really sure what incentive necessarily exists. It's a strong one for me personally... but not a lot of people really are too concerned.
It's not a right / left thing either... I have a sister-in-law that says because she's vegan, she doesn't have to recycle. She has a blue recycling bin, but never once put it out. I was doing work on her house for her and separated all the left-over stuff into recycling. That stuff stayed in there until she moved out... she had never put out the recycling bin once. But that's how a lot of people are, they just don't care and don't want to be inconvenienced.
For the most advanced recycling process that exists (what many of the wealthier cities are using right now), it can handle things getting thrown in there that can be sorted out. I don't know of any system though that could handle full trash loads and be able to separate out the recycling... the actual garbage would likely just overwhelm the processing facility.
Last year our Atlanta area city sold our trash/recycling and profited over $450,000 after expenses. They take anything with a triangle symbol on it for recycling except glass. Single stream, no sorting all in one city provided full size can with wheels. I take that out each week on our one day a week pick up but the non recycling only needs to go out once a month, mostly for smell as even that often it's not even close to full.
[This message has been edited by The Art Doctor (edited 07-07-2020).]
Originally posted by rinselberg: Admit it: It's been on your mind, even though you haven't been talking about it.
I haven't given it a thought. One time, I fell out of a tree. Luckily I hit every branch on the way down. Saving my life. I was gonna hug that tree, ... I cut it down instead.
As mentioned, plastic replaced paper. Now Plastic is bad. Now we have reusable cloth bags. Yeah. More washing loads (if they get done).
I think the worst is plastic. It doesn't degrade. Empty, it also takes up a lot of space in a landfill. If it is a container. Concerned, I always take the lid off the milk jug or three liter soda bottle, crush it, then put the lid back on. Compacted.
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: ... it is frustrating to see so much plastic getting disposed of by burning. The fumes are very toxic, and pretty bad for the environment.
No one told you to treat a burn barrel like a bong, .
How is it bad for the environment say over landfill space ?
I see no reason why plastic can not be ground up, mixed with asphalt, and be driven on. Heck, mix it with cement.
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