Latin America’s green initiatives amid pandemic rise in plastic use

As the Covid pandemic took hold in 2020, Latin Americans scrambled for solutions. Quarantine and social distancing measures were undermined by vast national gig economies, with many forced to continue working despite severe risks of contagion. Once economic woes set in, this informal labor sector grew even larger, with a very clear increase in self-employed delivery drivers. The lack of labor protections for these workers posed immediate problems, but a 66-percent increase in food deliveries has led to other knock-on effects, namely a worrying rise in the use of single-use plastic packaging.

In Brazil, Latin America’s biggest nation, WWF data mentioned by the non-profit Heinrich Böll Foundation Atlas of Plastic showed a “problematic” scenario in which only 1.28 percent of plastic was recycled despite soaring consumption figures during the health crisis. 

“The Brazilian plastic production and consumption situation could explain why Latin America is heading toward an environmental tragedy,” the study suggests. In comparison, over 97 percent of aluminum cans were recycled, according to pre-pandemic official numbers. 

Brazil is not alone. During the health crisis in Mexico, the nation’s plastic sector had a volume increase of 3 percent, despite moves in major cities to ban single-use plastic items and the country’s constitutional “right to a healthy environment.”

Over 7.7 million tons of...