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It looked as if the tide had turned against single-use plastic last year, with the , and consumer pressure continuing to grow.

Then the coronavirus hit. Hygiene fears and the demand for masks have unleashed a plastic pollution pandemic, while industry lobbyists are pushing to roll back restrictions.

It hasn鈥檛 been long enough for there to be official data on plastic waste and recycling rates, but there is no shortage of estimates and anecdotes. Every person in the UK using one single-use mask a day for a year would create 66,000 tonnes of plastic waste according to by a University College London team. 快猫短视频 readers have masks dumped on beaches, streets, harbours and the countryside.

Meanwhile, large parts of the retail and hospitality industry have suspended efforts to cut plastic use. Many coffee chains have stopped accepting reusable cups, , not glass, and petrol station pumps have been equipped with single-use plastic gloves. Online supermarkets have stopped collecting and recycling plastic bags. The list goes on.

鈥淢embers of the public can help by using reusable face masks, and disposing of any single-use masks and gloves carefully, to avoid adding to the plastic pollution that already clogs up our rivers and seas,鈥� says Louise Edge at Greenpeace UK.

Governments and local authorities are also going backwards. California dropped its ban on single-use plastic bags for several months, . Other places in the US, from Denver to Minneapolis or lifted existing ones. Italy a plastics tax on bottles, bags and more until 2021. A Norway-backed effort to establish an international treaty on marine plastic pollution .

As this goes on, the plastic industry has grabbed the opportunity to push back against growing restrictions in recent years, arguing that single-use plastic is safer and more hygienic amid a pandemic. 鈥淭he plastic industry is cynically using covid-19 as justification for removal of restrictions,鈥� says Julian Kirby at Friends of the Earth.

The drive might not succeed. Trade bodies in , 补苍诲听 have written to government and state officials asking for them to promote the supposed benefits of single-use plastics during the pandemic, but haven鈥檛 yet won policy shifts.

Meanwhile, plastic recycling rates may have fallen. Mushtaq Memon at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says he has heard reports of a decline due to broken supply chains, lower collections and fear of contaminated plastics. In the UK, 26 per cent of local authorities disruption to recycling at the start of April, at the height of lockdown. That figure fell to 18 per cent by late July.

Plastic鈥檚 resurgence has been sparked by concerns over transmission of the coronavirus, but it isn鈥檛 clear those fears are well-founded. Several papers have found that the virus seems to last longer on plastic than on other materials, including and . Scores of academics signed saying reusable products 鈥渃an be used safely by employing basic hygiene鈥�.

鈥淓xperts are telling us that when it comes to buying food and drinks, plastic packaging doesn鈥檛 offer any special protection and reusable cups bottles and containers are perfectly safe to use,鈥� says Edge.

One cause for hope is that people still seem to care about stemming plastic use despite the pandemic. In the UK, 74 per cent of people said covid-19 had made no difference to their plans to cut their use of plastic packaging, and twice as many said they would cut more, rather than less, YouGov found in early April. Similarly, UNEP polling of people in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam that concern about plastic pollution remains high.

And while some businesses may have taken short-term steps backwards, there is little sign of big players reneging on long-term targets, such as UK supermarket Sainsbury鈥檚 .

Some campaigners and observers see covid-19 economic recovery plans and changes in consumer behaviour as a chance to clamp down on single-use plastic. 鈥淲e have to move towards a more circular economy 鈥� slowing down the conveyor belt from production to waste, through more recycling, less single use throw-away material, better design and targeted use of materials,鈥� says Richard Bailey at the University of Oxford.

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