The zero-waste movement should not take a back seat during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Environmental Defence in Toronto.
Ashley Wallis, plastics program manager for the environmental advocacy group, says the pandemic has increased people’s reliance on single-use plastics and made some people wary of the health risks of reusable products.
Wallis told The Current guest host Mark Kelley the majority of Canadians still want to ban single-use plastics — even in light of the current public health situation.
“I do not think that we can allow the pandemic, our current public health crisis, to make existing environmental crises worse,” she said.
Here is part of their conversation.
There was this momentum to ban single-use plastic items. Clearly, that’s not the case now during the pandemic. How do you see this setback?
The pandemic has obviously brought new challenges. Single-use plastic use is up. The International Solid Waste Association estimates that we’re using about 250 to 300 per cent more single-use plastic now than we were before the pandemic.
But Canadians are actually still really supportive of a ban on single-use plastics. Recent polling suggests that 86 per cent want to see the government move ahead with bans.
So I think there’s a way for us to continue to take action on plastic pollution but also be conscious of the COVID context.
Is the plastic industry using the pandemic as an opportunity to make a comeback?
I think definitely, yeah. I think “never let an opportunity pass you by” seems to be the motto over there.
The plastics industry has definitely been pushing this false narrative that single-use plastics are the hygienic option. Less than a week after the pandemic was announced by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Plastics Industry Association was lobbying federal officials to roll back or block expected bans and stuff on single-use plastics.
But in late June … there was a statement that came out from a number of doctors and scientists and public health professionals that said reuseables are actually safe to use during the pandemic, as long as you’re following basic hygiene. And I think one of the things they point out that’s really relevant is that disposable items can actually present similar challenges to reusable items.
So that means that just because something is disposable, doesn’t mean it hasn’t been coughed on or touched by someone. There’s no reason to believe that that broccoli head at the grocery store wrapped in cellophane hasn’t been touched by other people.
I think pushing this idea that we need more plastic bags and cups and straws in the fight against COVID has been detrimental, and it’s unfortunate that that message came out so early in the pandemic, when we were all very sensitive to any information, because we were obviously scared.
