Has plastic benefited from the coronavirus crisis?

Audio 01:52

A cashier wearing a mask with a plastic film to protect herself from the coronavirus, in a supermarket in Strasbourg, on March 19, 2020. FREDERICK FLORIN / AFP

By: Claire Fages Follow

More medical equipment, masks and visors, more packaging in the food industry. The Covid-19 epidemic seems to have favored the return of plastic. But this is only an apprearance.

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The health crisis will have restored a certain nobility to plastic. Its biomedical applications became evident during the Covid-19 epidemic, when caregivers were looking for respirators, gowns, and of course surgical masks and FFP2. For the latter we tore off the raw material, the nonwoven of polypropylene fibers, spunbond and above all meltblown , with incomparable filtering properties. Europe makes them but above all for hygiene products, such as diapers, they are not at all the same machines, explains a professor from ENSAIT, the school of textile engineers in Roubaix. The meltblown prices have therefore increased more than tenfold.

Race to meltblown for masks, tension on the plexiglass

The epidemic context also favored the production of food packaging. Confined consumers have done more shopping in supermarkets, and out of caution they have gone to packaged food, even fruit, which has favored the production of food films in PELD, in HDPE trays, in PET bottles. PET also for the visors that employees began to wear to protect themselves, in addition to the masks. The plexiglass walls, PMMA, also appeared in front of the boxes. Finally everywhere on the planet, we began to wash our hands more, but the pipes, tanks and tubs, are made of polypropylene or PET.

Plus 30% in packaging, minus 90% in construction and building

But these new uses of plastic did not compensate for the collapse of other outlets. "  For a growth of 30% in packaging and above all in food packaging, we saw the outlets decrease by 90% in construction and the automobile  ", which were at a standstill, recalls Jean-Martin , the director general of the Plastics Federation. "  To say that plastic benefited from the health crisis is not correct  ", he judges.

Challenges for recycling

The plastic recycling sector suffered threefold, the 40% drop in volumes collected, the plunge in volumes sold and competition from virgin material. Since the price of oil has collapsed, virgin PET has been worth less than recycled PET (700 euros versus 1,150 per tonne). "  Some food manufacturers have nevertheless played the game of recycled packaging  ," says Jean-Luc Petithuguenin, president of FEDEREC.

The Federation of Recycling Companies promises that when dismantling the plexiglass walls, its members will offer a collection. Recycling the masks is however not yet envisaged, they are doomed to incineration, if they are not thrown anywhere but in the trash.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Pollution
  • Environment
  • Raw materials

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