MATTHEW ROZSA: How humanity lost control of plastic pollution

By Dilip -

Early in the pandemic, many scientists noticed an odd, incongruous side effect of business closures and widespread shelter-in-place orders: a concomitant reduction in air pollution. NASA saw significant drops in nitrogen dioxide levels in satellite data from April 2020. That raised an uneasy prospect for environmentalists, the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic — which has, as of now, killed 1.5 million people worldwide (including more than 260,000 in the United States) — might have a "silver lining" for the environment. 

Yet new reports appear to show that any such hope was misplaced, as whatever drop in air pollution the pandemic may have indirectly caused was displaced by a massive surge in plastic waste. Indeed, that poses a significant long-term problem for Earth's oceans, where much plastic waste ends up — and highlights the need for legislation to make more single-use goods biodegradable or develop large-scale public works projects to manage plastic pollution. ...

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/30/how-humanity-lost-control-of-plastic-pollution/

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