This year I've been looking at what's behind the explosion in disposable plastics.

And as you have heard on earlier episodes nearly everywhere I looked, I found fracking.

And the plastics fracking connection has even reached Australia, where the government

called its strategy to respond to the pandemic a gas-fired recovery.

Oh, hello, what's that?

We have an Australian reporter now?

Yes, you've been asking for it and now we're digging into the oil and gas industry down under.

And when I say, we, I mean, you, Lindel Rollins, welcome to Drilled.

Thank you so much, Amy. I'm so excited to be here.

And so, as I was saying, Australia's recovery from the pandemic is fired by gas.

Our sort of feedstock is all of your modern life. You want to live a modern life, you need a fossil feedstock.

You can't get carbon any other way. If you want a chemistry lesson, I'll help you at the back.

That's Andrew Levaris, the former CEO of Dow Chemicals, the world's second biggest maker of plastic waste.

Levaris was born and raised in Darwin in the Northern Territory.

He's gone on to advise US presidents, including Obama and Trump.

More recently, Levaris was back home in Australia during the pandemic.

And in his spare time, became a strategic advisor to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's National COVID-19 Coordination Commission.

Levaris joined the Commission's manufacturing task force and they quickly put out a report titled

Creating a Competitive Domestic Gas Market.

That's what you're advocate the moment. We have got blastering winds. We are surrounded by a red sky,

Choking dust and Chasing smoke.

That is just one of countless dramatic stories to come out of this bushfire season, which is reaching on with no relief in sight.

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