The Pandemic Versus The Planet

Why is it that, in times of fear, society reverts back to relying on single-use disposables?

COVID-19 will have lasting effects on the environmental movement. While some of such effects—like embracing forced slowness, for example—took cars off the road and reduced worldwide carbon emissions in the short-term, our propensity toward fear-based buying over the past year has littered the planet. Indeed, communities that fought long and hard to ban single-use items embraced them during the pandemic; there’s the plastics problem, too: currently, the fossil fuels industry is doubling down on creating virgin plastic in hopes of staying relevant (and rich). 

On this week’s show I speak with Sanikind co-founders Miles Pepper and Martica Wakeman, a *refillable* hand sanitizer dispenser made from recycled plastic. Miles and Martica believe it’s entirely possible to stay healthy without single-use products, and they’re on the show to teach us how.

Here’s a preview of this week’s episode:

[7:30] Is it possible to make sanitary products (like hand sanitizer) circular? Here’s how

[15:45] Fear-based buying: 5 ways in which the pandemic has increased consumer reliance on single-use waste

[22:00] How excessive stress on a certain demographic (ahem … women) negatively impacts the environmental moment

[24:00] How (and why) the fossil fuels industry has accelerated the creation of virgin plastic (and what it means for the rest of us)

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Swell water bottle
• Sanikind (Use code SUSTAINABLE25 at checkout for 25% off your order!)
• The Plastic Pandemic: COVID-19 Trashed the Recycling Dream (via Reuters)

* Thank you to Outrage + Optimism for sponsoring this episode! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts for new episodes every Thursday.

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