The COVID-19 has almost wiped off the progress made towards phasing out plastic as people use the products more often these days to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley for the Oceans, an environmental organization with a focus on marine plastic pollution, told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2020) The COVID-19 has almost wiped off the progress made towards phasing out plastic as people use the products more often these days to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley for the Oceans, an environmental organization with a focus on marine plastic pollution, told Sputnik.
"The pandemic was working pretty much against everything that the plastic movement has campaigned for in the last 10 years. People are using way more plastic packaging and it is okay now because health and safety are in priority. Suddenly, you see plastic items from all over the place brought back. In New York, for example, the plastic bag ban is pretty much reversed, people are just using thicker plastic materials now," Gutsch told Sputnik on the sidelines of Moscow Open Innovations forum, held virtually this week.
People need to come up with safer alternatives to plastic as the need to use similar alternatives will always be there in the scenario of a global pandemic, the activist stressed.
"The plastic crisis reached that point when it became unacceptable for people and that is one of the issues that could be fixed easier. Therefore, you can expect that now big changes will happen, you have to push for them, but I am very positive when it comes to that," Gutsch added.
Medical masks and disposable gloves widely used across the world as protective means amid the pandemic may result in the seas and oceans polluted with non-degradable and non-recyclable material, the French environmental organization, Operation Clean Sea, told Sputnik in May.
