Los Angeles Sustainability Executives Roundtable (LASER)

The White Paper Pandemic Series

The status of COVID-19 andplastic waste in Los Angeles andwhat’s needed to move towardsa circular plastic economy

April 2021

U . S . G r e e n B u i l d i n g C o u n c i l - L o s A n g e l e s     |     w w w . u s g b c - l a . o r g5 2 5 S . H e w i t t S t . L o s A n g e l e s , C A 9 0 0 1 3

AuthorsUSGBC-LACarli Schoenleber

Farah Lavassani (Graphic design support)

AcknowledgementsUSGBC-LA Executive Director: Ben Stapleton

LASER Program Manager: Becky Feldman Edwards

LASER Leadership Committee: Ben Stapleton - Executive Director, USGBC-LA

Nurit Katz - Chief Sustainability Officer, UCLA

Lisa Day - Manager Environmental Sustainability, Disney

John Marler - VP Energy and Environment, AEG

Lisa Collichio - Director Sustainability, Metrolink

Maria Sison-Roces - Manager Corporate Sustainability Programs, LADWP

Gabe Olson - Clean Energy Strategy, SoCalGas

Natalie Teera - VP Sustainability & Social Impact, Hudson Pacific Properties

Rick Duarte- Sustainability, Metropolitan Water District

Tamara Wallace - Sustainability Manager, Cal States Office of the Chancellor

Special thanks to: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Denise Braun (All About Waste), Stacy Sinclair (LA Metro), Rebecca

Rasmussen (City of LA), and Erin Lopez (USGBC-LA)

AUTHORS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 3Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................... 4How did COVID-19 shift plastic waste generation and management? ............................................. 5Plastic waste generation ................................................................................................................................... 5Plastic waste management ............................................................................................................................... 7Moving towards a circular plastics economy ............................................................................................. 8Mitigating plastic waste during and after COVID-19 ............................................................................. 9Replacing single-use plastics with reusables ............................................................................................. 6TRUE zero waste certification ........................................................................................................................ 9Education and awareness ................................................................................................................................. 10Are single-use plastics safer than reusables? ............................................................................................. 10Do all recyclable plastics get recycled? ........................................................................................................ 11Reducing and recycling disposable PPE ....................................................................................................... 11Circular business models .................................................................................................................................. 12Rental and deposit systems ............................................................................................................................. 12Bulk/Refill & Zero Waste Stores .................................................................................................................... 12Waste-free Vending Machines ....................................................................................................................... 13Policy mechanisms .............................................................................................................................................. 13State and local plastic policies ........................................................................................................................ 14Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................ 14

References ................................................................................................................................................. 16

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waste certification, education and awareness campaigns, PPE management, circular business models,

and policy mechanisms.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This white paper evaluates how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted U.S. and Los Angeles plastic waste

streams and presents solutions for business leaders and policymakers to consider to prevent the

pandemic from reversing progress towards a circular plastic economy. Though more data is needed,

our review suggests that pandemic-related demand for single-use plastics (e.g., PPE, online orders,

takeout dining) and the suspension of single-use plastic policies led to higher than normal generation of

single- use plastic waste that is difficult to recycle. Furthermore, data from across the U.S. and Los

Angeles demonstrate the pandemic further impaired an already struggling recycling industry and likelyresulted in a higher proportion of plastic waste channeled to

landfills and the environment. Although single-use plastics

were arguably necessary to fight COVID-19, it is critical we

not let the pandemic erase progress away from the

mainstream linear plastics economy that is unequivocally

harmful for society and the environment. As such, our paper

discusses opportunities to move toward a circular plastic

economy during and after the pandemic via the following

avenues: reuse practices in commercial buildings, TRUE zero

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Around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic significantlyshifted plastic consumption and waste managementpractices. Despite political and cultural movement awayfrom single-use plastics in the past decade, products neededto fight COVID-19 (e.g., masks, gloves, gowns, testing kits)and adapt to life at home (e.g., takeout containers, deliverypackaging) likely resulted in a higher proportion of single-useplastics in the waste stream. Consequently, many areconcerned the pandemic accelerated negativeenvironmental impacts from plastic waste. Yet, the writingwas already on the wall well before 2020. Coupled with theinadequacy of our recycling systems, policies aimed atreducing plastic waste and pollution have failed to cull theever increasing rate of plastic going into our environmentand particularly our oceans. Despite our well-intentionedrecycling habits, plastic’s life cycle is still largely linear,

INTRODUCTION

meaning most new plastic comes from extracting fossil fuels and very little plastic waste is recycled into new products. In theU.S., about 8% of plastic is recycled, 15% is incinerated, and 75% is dumped into landfills.

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Though plastic has served an important role in the development of our society, the negative externalities of global plasticconsumption are serious and growing. Plastic comprises 80% of ocean litter, and each year, around eight million tons of plasticare dumped into our oceans, equivalent to the weight of nine Golden Gate Bridges. Locally, a 2016 report found a third ofSouthern California’s sea floor was littered with plastic trash. As demand for plastic increases, the amount of plastic dumped inthe ocean is expected to double by 2030 and quadruple by 2050. Plastic production also impacts global fossil fuel consumption,and by extension, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Producing plastic is inherently carbon intensive as plastics are primarilyderived from petroleum that needs several rounds of energy-intense processing. Though global plastic production accounts for6% of oil consumption now, this rate is expected to jump to 20% by 2050,2 amounting to around 17% of the global carbonbudget. Finally, plastic pollution has negative economic implications related to degradation of natural systems, loss of tourismrevenue, and plastic litter removal. The United Nations estimated plastic pollution accounts for over 13 billion dollars (USD) indamage to marine ecosystems every year, and in California, $420 million dollars is spent annually to clean up (mostly plastic)litter in streets, parks, storm drains, and waterways.

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HOW DID COVID-19 SHIFT PLASTIC WASTEGENERATION AND MANAGEMENT?

To mitigate these negative impacts, stronger efforts must be taken to create a circular plastic economy, that is, an economythat removes the concept of plastic “waste” entirely in favor of a closed-loop system that continually finds monetary value innatural resources that have already been extracted. While it appears the pandemic moved us further from this goal, fightingCOVID-19 also showed our society is capable of monumental adaptation to benefit the health and wellbeing of ourcommunities. Could this window of adaptability be harnessed by business leaders and policymakers to push for moresustainable, circular plastic waste management systems? Throughout this paper, we will explore how COVID-19 shiftedplastic consumption and management throughout the U.S., California, and Los Angeles (LA) and follow with a discussion onwhat’s needed in the short and long term to move towards a circular plastic economy.

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Plastic waste generationIt is currently unclear to what extent COVID-19 impacted plastic waste generation in the U.S. On one hand, several sourcessuggest the pandemic increased plastic demand, particularly for single-use plastics. It’s been estimated the U.S. created anentire year’s worth of medical waste in just two months of the pandemic, primarily due to greater use of disposable plasticgloves, masks, and gowns. Moreover, many believe single-use plastic consumption has been elevated due to heightened hygieneconcerns and increased demand for household products, online orders, and takeout dining. Because of mandated stay at homeorders and work from home policies, there is at least evidence that residential solid waste increased in many areas throughoutthe U.S., though it’s still unclear how much waste has been comprised of plastic. The Solid Waste Association of North Americaobserved a 20% increase in residential waste at the start of the pandemic and a 5-10% increase by December, 2020. Likewise, residential solid waste in LA increased by 15-20%. However, because COVID-19 shut down many commercial sectorsand caused widespread unemployment, it’s unclear how overall waste generation, and by extension plastic consumption, wasimpacted in the U.S. In LA, the Los Angeles Times reported commercial waste had decreased by 15%. Nonetheless, a changein the amount and type of plastic pollution was observed, suggesting an increase in single-use plastic use.

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A representative from the Surfrider Foundationnoted in November, 2020 there had been a 70%increase in the number of items found at clean upevents. Likewise, at an annual October, 2020 Healthe Bay coastal clean up event in LA, volunteersreported collecting unusually high levels of PersonalProtective Equipment (PPE), take out containers,and plastic bags, with most of the plastic trash beingfood-related. Some researchers havehypothesized that COVID-19 decreased overallglobal waste generation while simultaneouslyincreasing the proportion of plastic in the wastestream.

Some of these changes can likely be attributed tothe suspension of laws aimed at plastic wastereduction, namely single-use plastic bag bans. Givenevidence that reusable bags are rarely washed and

and COVID-19 can survive on surfaces, elected officials were initially urged to suspend or delay the implementation of plasticbag ban policies to reduce transmission risk to retail and grocery workers. The Plastics Industry Association capitalized on thismoment in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reinstating arguments that reusable bags present ahigh risk of disease spread and framing single-use plastics as the safest choice. Throughout U.S. states and municipalities,approximately 46 plastic bag bans were delayed or temporarily suspended and 15 policies banning reusable bags wereimplemented; as of February, 2021, about half of these plastic bag bans were still delayed or suspended and all 15 reusable bagbans had been lifted. California was among the many states that temporarily suspended its single-use plastic bag ban in April,2020, though the policy was reinstated by June, 2020. Californians Against Waste reported that during this suspension, anestimated one billion single-use plastic bags were distributed throughout the state in May and April alone.

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Though more data is needed to elucidate how COVID-19 shifted plastic waste generation, there is convincing evidence thepandemic reduced plastic recycling rates. Nearly 150 recycling programs in the U.S. were temporarily suspended and many werecut altogether due to COVID-19. In California, operations at several Waste Management-run Material Recovery Facilities(MRF), including the Claremont MRF in LA County, were temporarily suspended following the California stay at home order. Alex Helou, the City of LA Sanitation Assistant Director, reported to the Los Angeles Times in December, 2020 that only five of17 LA recyclable collection facilities had been fully operating throughout the pandemic, challenging the sorting capacity for therecycling centers that remained open. Consequently, thousands of tons of recycled materials were directly sent to landfills,particularly at the onset of the pandemic; in May, 2020, Helou reported to KCRW that 50-70% of trucks carrying recycledmaterials were going directly to the landfill.

Along with concerns of virus transmission among recycling center workers, reduced plastic recycling rates can largely beattributed to the drop in oil prices triggered by the pandemic, resulting in the lowest virgin plastic (i.e., produced from raw fossilfuels) prices seen in decades. As production costs dropped for virgin plastic, producing recycled plastic became even moreexpensive, with recycled plastic bottles costing 83-93% more to produce than virgin plastic bottles. In the same KCRW articlecited above, Alex Helou noted that the price of processing recycled materials in LA had roughly doubled from $70/ton to$150/ton. With greater economic incentive to use virgin plastic, demand for recycled plastic plummeted worldwide, even forthe most recycled categories of reclaimed plastic (i.e., PET (#1) and HDPE (#2)). For example, several recycled plastic filmmanufacturers reported a significant decrease in demand following California’s temporary suspension of its single-use plasticbag ban, which also suspended requirements for plastic bag manufacturers to use 40% recycled plastic film.

Yet, recycling companies in the U.S. and California had already been struggling since2018 when China and other Asian countries widely stopped buying U.S. plasticwaste. Between 2017 and 2019, U.S. plastic exports decreased by about half, from750,000 tons to 375,000 tons. Prior to 2020, this shift had already reduced theeconomic viability of plastic recycling such that many recycling companies in the U.S.had either raised their prices significantly (up to four times) or ended recyclingprograms entirely, including multiple recycling centers and MRFs in LA County. A 2019 report from Consumer Watchdog found 40% of California’s recyclingcenters had permanently closed since 2013. For years before the pandemic, it wassimply cheaper to dump most plastic waste in a landfill instead of recycling it.

Plastic waste management

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As it stands, evidence suggests that heightened demandfor single-use plastics and dropping oil prices increasedthe proportion of plastic going into landfills and theenvironment. Moreover, increased concern aroundhygiene and food safety during the pandemic may havereversed some of the publics’ pre-pandemic momentumto mitigate plastic waste. Though we couldn’t findcomparable U.S. data, a representative survey ofCanadians found 40% of respondents felt safety was“very important” or “extremely important” in theirdecisions to buy products with plastic packaging. Thissurvey also found support for a single-use plastics banhad decreased from 70% in 2019 to 58% in 2020, andsimilarly motivation to avoid plastics and concern forenvironmental impacts of plastics had both dropped bya few percentage points.

MOVING TOWARDS A CIRCULAR PLASTICSECONOMY

While these trends are discouraging, a potential silver lining is that the pandemic proved our society is capable of quickly anddramatically shifting our systems and everyday behaviors for the greater good and health of our communities. Though COVID-19 vaccines are being quickly administered throughout the U.S., experts predict society won’t return to a “normal” pre-pandemicway of life until the spring or summer of 2022. Rather than letting the pandemic reverse political and cultural progression awayfrom single-use plastics, it's worth asking how business leaders and policy makers could leverage this adaptability window tofurther shift public attitudes and behaviors around plastic. Throughout the remainder of the paper, we’ll explore short- and long-term solutions leaders should consider to curtail plastic waste and move towards a circular plastic economy. Based on the reviewabove, the solutions presented are directed towards two primary problems: 1) reducing consumption of single-use plastics and 2)increasing plastic recycling rates.

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Tea and Coffee: Replace single-use plastic pod coffee machines with drip coffee or espresso machines. Replace tea bags withbulk tea containers and reusable tea strainers. Water: Provide filtered water onsite and install water bottle refill stations. Rental system: Rent out reusable travel mugs, to-go containers, bags, utensils at the front desk employees can take off thepremises. Encourage employees to bring their own. Vending machines: Replace vending machine items that could be offered package-free in bulk containers (chips, nuts,pretzels etc.)

With this in mind, it’s unsurprising UCLA’s 2020 “Plastic Waste in LA County” report found that replacing single-use plastic fooditems with reusable items had “the greatest potential to reduce the negative impacts associated with plastic waste in LA County.”Furthermore, compared to bioplastic/compostable alternatives or by-request single-use disposables, reusable alternatives tofood-related single-use plastics offered the greatest opportunity for operational cost savings. By investing in reusable items (e.g.,dishes, utensils, coffee cups) and the infrastructure to clean them (e.g., dishwasher), available evidence suggests businesses willbreak even in the first year and subsequently save thousands of dollars per year via reduced waste processing, litter clean up, anddisposable item costs. As dishwashers become more energy and water efficient and the energy grid is decarbonized, the lifetimeimpacts of reusables will be continually reduced over time compared to single-use disposables.

In addition to supplying a dishwashing and reusable food-ware system, the following strategies offer an accessible and impactfulstarting point for offices and other commercial buildings to reduce both plastic waste and operational costs:

MITIGATING PLASTIC WASTE DURING ANDAFTER COVID-19

Replacing single-use plastics with reusables

With fewer people occupying offices, restaurants, and other commercialestablishments due to COVID-19, an opportunity is presented tobusiness owners and sustainability managers to implement simple buteffective plastic waste reduction practices. Though recycling hashistorically been the primary approach to sustainably manage plastics,businesses actually have the most to gain financially andenvironmentally by preventing plastic waste from being used in the firstplace (see Figure 4).38

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To reduce plastic waste unrelated to food, business owners and facility managers would also benefit from the structure andguidance offered through the TRUE program for zero waste certification. Similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEEDcertification, TRUE offers a blueprint to increase circularity in facilities, with the ultimate goal of diverting at least 90% of solidwaste from landfills, incineration, and the environment. The program provides expert guidance to divert waste via four mainavenues: reduction, reuse, composting, and recycling. When systematically implemented throughout upstream supply chains anddownstream waste management practices, the TRUE system reduces negative environmental impacts of waste while cuttingoperational costs and supporting new zero-waste markets. In addition to reusable food serviceware infrastructure, TRUE offersseveral strategies to reduce plastic waste generation. For example, facilities can achieve several credits within the TRUE zerowaste rating system by working with vendors to reduce upstream waste. Some strategies include reducing unnecessary single-use packaging, increasing the recyclability of packaging, sending unused packaging back to vendors for reuse, and selectingvendors that embrace zero-waste or low-plastic principles.

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TRUE zero waste certification

With evidence showing public education campaigns can reduce plastic pollution40 and increase recycling rates,41 similarcampaigns should be used to dispel myths around COVID-19 and single-use plastics. Based on our review of how COVID-19shifted plastic consumption and management above, we recommend campaigns focus on two false beliefs: 1) single-use plasticsare safer than reusable alternatives and 2) all plastics accepted in our recycling bins actually get recycled.

Are single-use plastics safer than reusables?Because many single-use plastic bag laws were suspended or delayed for COVID-19 related safety reasons, it’s important toprovide awareness on the safety of reusable items. In the case of suspending single-use plastic bag bans, health experts werequick to point out there was no evidence that single-use plastic bags were less likely to spread COVID-19 than reusablealternatives. In fact, a 2020 study concluded reusable grocery bags presented a very small risk of COVID-19 transmissioncompared to human-to-human contact via respiratory droplets. Moreover, over 125 health experts around the world signed astatement in June, 2020 that reusable items can be similarly hygienic if they are washed and/or disinfected before use. Neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have indicated reusableitems present any public health risks when it comes to mitigating COVID-19. Furthermore, some experts have questioned theunderlying assumption that single-use plastic bags are reliably sanitary. Dr. Kate O’Neil at the University of California Berkeleymaintained that in comparison to sterile gloves and masks used in a doctor’s office, single-use plastic bags are not held to thesame hygienic standards and thus cannot be assumed to be sterile. Before the pandemic, California was headed in the rightdirection by enacting AB 619 in 2019, a law that now requires restaurants to allow customer use of clean reusable cups andcontainers.

Education and awareness

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Do all recyclable plastics get recycled?Another belief that should be targeted is the false perception that plastic placed in a blue bin will actually get recycled. In reality,the amount of plastic recycled is not just dependent on what can technically be recycled but rather on demand for recycledplastic materials and local availability of recycling technology. Despite the fact most plastics are recyclable, many MRFs will notrecover and recycle single-use plastic products due to difficulty in sorting and the high likelihood of food residue contamination. As noted above, only 8% of plastics in the U.S. get recycled. Likewise, in LA County, only PET (#1) and HDPE (#2) plastics arecommonly recycled (e.g., milk jugs, detergent bottles, and drink bottles) and plastic resin types 3, 4, 6, and 7 (e.g., medicinebottles, yogurt cups, plastic bags), along with all single-use plastic food-ware, are likely to head straight for a landfill.

Part of the publics’ confusion around plastic recycling has been attributed to plastic resin codes (e.g., #1=PET) stamped on mostplastic items, which also includes the three arrow recycling symbol. According to 2020 reporting from National Public Radio, theplastic industry began lobbying to put this misleading symbol on plastic items in 1989, allegedly to subdue public concern aroundthe environmental impacts of plastic. Unsurprisingly, once this symbol became standard, consumers began throwing plastic itemsin their blue bins that local recyclers couldn’t actually sell or reclaim. To combat this misconception, recyclers andmunicipalities should work together to educate consumers on what resin codes actually translate to recyclability in their localarea. In theory, if the public is aware plastic recyclability doesn’t necessarily translate to plastic recycling, people may be moreapt to reduce consumption of single-use plastics and adopt reuse practices.

It will also be important in the short term to minimize the negative impact of disposable PPE (e.g., masks, gloves) as thesematerials are difficult to recycle and negatively impact the environment. In addition to harming marine ecosystems whenlittered, a study from the University College London estimated disposable masks have 10 times the climate change impact thanreusable cloth masks.50 Given multi-layered cloth masks have been recommended by the CDC to prevent community spread ofCOVID-19, encouraging the public to replace disposable masks with reusable cloth masks is a sound option to both mitigateplastic waste and slow the spread of COVID-19.

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Reducing and recycling disposable PPE

PETE HDPE V LDPE PP PS OTHER

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For disposable PPE that is unavoidable and not used in a medical setting, the environmental impact of PPE can be reduced byrecycling it through programs like Terracycle and Rightcycle. Recognizing PPE cannot be recycled through most public services,Terracycle offers a mail-in Zero Waste Box that makes it easy for facilities to recycle single-use PPE such as masks, gloves, andsafety glasses. Similarly, non-medical facilities that use Kimberly-Clark PPE can use the RightCycle program to mail back usedplastic gloves, glasses, and protective clothing which are then recycled into plastic pellets and used to manufacture newconsumer goods. The RightCycle program has been successfully implemented in facilities such as breweries, zoos, and sciencelaboratories.

While the recommendations above serve to reduce plastic waste in the short-term, solving the plastic crisis will require movingbeyond business models that reinforce a linear plastic waste stream. Moving forward, we must embrace innovative, circularmodels that make single-use plastic waste obsolete. A few worth noting are rental and deposit systems, bulk/refill stores, andwaste-free vending machines.

Rental and deposit systems Applicable in restaurants, cafes, and cafeterias, this model allows the customer to rent a reusable container for their meal orbeverage and return it to the business or a drop off location at a later time, at which point the container is cleaned and depositrefunded. In some cases, customers pay for the service via a monthly or annual subscription. A longstanding example is Eco-Containers or Eco-Takeout, a to-go container system integrated into many university and corporate campus food courts; thesystem starts with customers buying their first container which are then continually used and returned for a clean container forno extra charge.54 Newer, mostly app-based, services include Go-Box (Portland, OR) and OZZI for containers, Usefull (Boston,MA), Muuse (Asia, San Francisco, CA), Vessel (Boulder, CO & Berkeley, CA), and CupClub (Palo Alto, CA) for cups, DispatchGoods (San Francisco & Alameda, CA) for takeout dining, and Loop (Global) for brand-name food and household products. Arelated idea is Dishcraft (San Francisco, CA), a dishwashing and delivery service for food vendors powered by AI and robotics.

Bulk/Refill & Zero Waste StoresBulk and refill sections have been available throughout many U.S. grocery stores and food cooperatives for years, though free,single-use plastic bags are often offered and sometimes customers are not allowed to bring their own reusable containers due tofood safety regulations.55 More recently, companies have emerged which put plastic and package-free at the center of theirbusiness model for food, home, and personal care products. A few LA-based companies include The Waste Less Shop, SustainLA,Zero Grocery, Wild Terra, Otherwild Goods & Services, No Tox Life, The Refillery L.A., and many others.

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Waste-free Vending Machines Waste-free vending machines offer the normal convenience of a vendingmachine but remove single-use packaging from the business model. Somevending machines operate using the deposit system described above and someallow customers to use their own container. A few of these companies includeDrinkfill (Vancouver, Canada), Bevi (U.S. and Canada), and The Milk Station(United Kingdom), and FreshBowl (New York City).

Policy mechanisms

Much like other environmental crises, government interventions will likely be necessary to fully shift to a circular plasticseconomy. Prominent policy ideas include taxing virgin plastic, subsidizing recycled plastic, and investing in recycling technology.

Taxing virgin plastics or difficult to recycle plastics is a commonly cited strategy to target single-use plastics. Currently, theprice of virgin plastic does not reflect the true cost of plastics’ negative impacts on the environment and society (e.g., harm tomarine ecosystems, GHG emissions, litter clean up), thus taxation could help raise funds to mitigate these impacts. Taxation alsohas the potential to reduce unnecessary plastic packaging in manufacturing, drive demand for recycled plastic, and encourageinnovation in recycling technologies. Similarly, landfill tipping fees could be increased to make recycling a more economicchoice. As there is a lack of applied research on positive or negative consequences of plastic taxes, care should be taken toensure taxes would not increase consumer good prices for low-income communities; a plastic tax dividend returned to taxpayersmay help mitigate this issue.

On the other hand, subsidies or tax breaks could help make recycled plastic less expensive to produce and thus moreeconomically competitive with virgin plastic. Beyond subsidizing recycled plastic and easily recycled plastics, subsidies could alsobe directed towards efficient recycling facilities, thereby incentivizing innovation towards more effective sorting technology.Emerging technologies (e.g., machine learning, chemical recycling) exist, but further investments are needed to scale up recyclingof mixed plastics beyond PET (#1) and HDPE (#2) as well as compostable bio-based plastics that currently lack adequateindustrial composting infrastructure to bring to scale.

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State and local plastic policies Unfortunately, the California Circular Economy Pollution Reduction Act (Senate Bill 54) was rejected by California lawmakers in2020. This policy aimed to drastically reduce single-use plastic waste by requiring all food- and packaging-related single-usewaste to be recyclable or compostable by 2032, aiming for a 75% reduction in waste from single-use products. If passed, itwould’ve been the strictest single-use plastic law in the U.S., but there is some hope it will be reconsidered in 2021. On thebright side, California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 793 in 2020, which requires all plastic bottles to contain at least 15%recycled plastic by 2022, 25% by 2025, and 50% by 2030 and allocates funding for recycling infrastructure. Moreover, sinceAssembly Bill 1884 was enacted in 2018, food vendors throughout California have only been allowed to distribute plastic strawsupon request.

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Locally, LA County similarly approved a plastic straw and stirrer ordinance following AB1884. In 2019, the City of Santa Monica implemented a Disposable Food Service WareOrdinance which prohibits all non-marine-degradable food service ware, including alltypes of plastic. Lastly, LA County indicated they were in the process of creating a policyto target food-related single-use plastic waste immediately before the pandemic, however,as of February, 2021, no details on such a policy have been released.

CONCLUSION

Focusing on the U.S. and LA, this paper aims to understand how COVID-19 impacted the plastic waste stream and presentssolutions for business leaders and policy makers on how to move towards a circular plastics economy. Because comprehensivewaste data throughout the pandemic has yet to be released, it is still unclear to what extent the pandemic impacted overall wasteand plastic waste generation in the U.S. and LA. As it stands, it appears the pandemic increased use of single-use plastics due toheightened demand for PPE, takeout dining, online orders, and household products. Data is similarly decentralized when it comesto plastic waste management, but available evidence suggests the pandemic further hampered the recycling industry’s ability toreclaim plastic waste, largely due to the drop in oil prices that shifted demand away from recycled plastic towards virgin plastics.

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To both reduce use of single-use plastics and increase plastic recycling rates during and after the pandemic, this paper presentsseveral solutions to business and political leaders for consideration. In the short term, we recommend leaders invest ininfrastructure to support reuse practices in commercial buildings to reduce use of food-related single-use plastics, the mostimpactful plastic waste category in LA County. The TRUE zero waste rating system may be particularly useful for facilities tostreamline more sustainable plastic waste management systems. Other short-term solutions include dispelling publicmisinformation around the safety of reusables, decreasing use of disposable masks, and increasing recycling rates for PPE. In thelong-term, we recommend leaders invest in circular business models such as rental and deposit systems and support progressivepolicies that would make plastic recycling more technologically and economically feasible.

Though single-use plastics have been arguably necessary to combat the pandemic, it is important that hard-won progress towarda circular plastics economy is not reversed. From GHG heavy plastic production processes to the profound impact of plasticwaste on our oceans, with or without a pandemic, it is critical our society move away from the mainstream linear plastic economyand its associated negative environmental and economic impacts.

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