The International Solid Waste Association estimates consumption of single-use plastic may

have grown 250 to 300% in America since the pandemic began.

The resurgence of the thin single-use, truly single-use plastic bags is astonishing.

The pandemic is concerned New York's plastic bag ban is not being enforced.

The loss full implementation was first delayed in February by a court challenge.

And then COVID hit.

So the 30-day delay became a 60-day delay to the 90-day delay.

The pandemic has led to a lot of confusion about whether it's safe to bring reusable bags

into grocery stores.

While some stores allow them, others don't.

But single-use plastic is also surging in other ways.

Deliveries wrapped in plastic have soared.

Coffee shops like Starbucks have temporarily stopped filling reusable cups.

And some US cities and states suspended or postponed bans on plastic shopping bags.

The plastics industry has lobbied for these rollbacks, arguing that single-use plastic

is the safest material to protect people from COVID-19.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that the pandemic spurred a massive uptick in plastic.

If you were here in the US, you almost immediately saw it everywhere.

Plastic bags back at the grocery store, plastic wrapping on everything, the masks, the gloves.

But what you might not have known was just how intentional that was on the part of the

industry.

Just how ready they were to deploy a strategy that would increase the use of plastic.

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