# And Then There Was COVID

An episode of [Drilled](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439735906), 30 Jul 2021, 22 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/pdrl.fm/3e5572/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/9a7ab5ee-ce11-48ff-a544-b3ec00ea9b1e/287b2019-66fb-40d2-be18-b3ec00f2a3c6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f82f371-6316-4ea6-a108-b3ec00ea9b2d

Just as the fossil fuel industry was starting to worry about demand for single use plastics, along comes a global pandemic that they could leverage to push more of it. And they did! But was it enough to save them entirely? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:07] Speaker 1: The International Solid Waste Association estimates consumption of single use
[0:12] Speaker 1: plastic may have grown two hundred and fifty to three
[0:16] Speaker 1: hundred percent in America since the pandemic begins.
[0:19] Speaker 2: The resurgence of the thin, single use truly single use
[0:24] Speaker 2: plastic bags is astonished.
[0:26] Speaker 3: And is concerned New York's plastic bag ban is not
[0:29] Speaker 3: being enforced.
[0:30] Speaker 1: The lost full implementation was first delayed in February by
[0:33] Speaker 1: a court challenge.
[0:34] Speaker 4: And then COVID hit, so the thirty day delay became
[0:37] Speaker 4: a sixty day delayed to the ninety day delays. The
[0:39] Speaker 4: pandemic has led to a lot of confusion about whether
[0:43] Speaker 4: it's safe to bring reusable bags into grocery stores. While
[0:46] Speaker 4: some stores allow them, others.
[0:48] Speaker 5: Don't, But single use plastic is also surging in other ways.
[0:53] Speaker 5: Deliveries wrapped in plastic have soared. Coffee shops like Starbucks
[0:57] Speaker 5: have temporarily stopped filling we Use A cups, and some
[1:01] Speaker 5: US cities and states suspended or postponed fans on plastic
[1:05] Speaker 5: shopping bags. The plastics industry has lobbied for these rollbacks,
[1:10] Speaker 5: arguing that single use plastic is the safest material to
[1:14] Speaker 5: protect people from COVID nineteen.
[1:20] Speaker 4: It probably comes as no surprise to you that the
[1:24] Speaker 4: pandemic spurred a massive uptick in plastic. If you were
[1:29] Speaker 4: here in the US, you almost immediately saw it everywhere.
[1:33] Speaker 4: Plastic bags back at the grocery store, plastic wrapping on everything,
[1:37] Speaker 4: the masks, the gloves. But what you might not have
[1:42] Speaker 4: known was just how intentional that was on the part
[1:45] Speaker 4: of the industry, just how ready they were to deploy
[1:49] Speaker 4: a strategy that would increase the use of plastic. If
[1:53] Speaker 4: there's one thing I've learned from covering the fossil fuel
[1:56] Speaker 4: industry and its various forms over the last twenty years,
[2:01] Speaker 4: it's that they are prepared for absolutely everything. Shell actually
[2:07] Speaker 4: invented something called scenario planning back in the late eighties
[2:12] Speaker 4: and early nineties. Now all the oil companies do it,
[2:15] Speaker 4: and lots of other industries too. It's basically what it
[2:20] Speaker 4: sounds like, brainstorming all the possible future scenarios and making
[2:25] Speaker 4: a plan for each of them. No industry is better
[2:29] Speaker 4: at it than the fossil fuel industry, which is why
[2:32] Speaker 4: they always seem to have a response ready for everything.
[2:36] Speaker 4: When COVID nineteen first started to really take hold in
[2:40] Speaker 4: the US back in March twenty twenty, I started scouring
[2:44] Speaker 4: all my usual sources for evidence of the industry's response,
[2:49] Speaker 4: and sure enough, the American Petroleum Institute and the American
[2:53] Speaker 4: Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the two main trade groups for
[2:57] Speaker 4: the industry, were immediately with politicians asking for regulatory rollbacks
[3:03] Speaker 4: and other types of support. The API tackled everything from
[3:07] Speaker 4: pipeline permitting to emissions regulations, while the AFPM focused on
[3:12] Speaker 4: all the rules that would affect the buildout of plastic
[3:15] Speaker 4: manufacturing facilities. But they also set their sights on getting
[3:19] Speaker 4: rid of something that's been bugging the industry for years,
[3:25] Speaker 4: plastic bag bands. As you heard at the top of
[3:29] Speaker 4: the episode, there was some concern early on that people
[3:33] Speaker 4: might spread COVID by bringing their bags to the grocery store.
[3:37] Speaker 4: We just didn't know how the virus was spread at
[3:40] Speaker 4: the time, and the industry pounced on that confusion and
[3:44] Speaker 4: the fear that accompanied it, and they pushed this idea
[3:47] Speaker 4: that plastic bags were somehow safer than reusable bags, that
[3:53] Speaker 4: somehow the virus wouldn't live on them. It was sort
[3:57] Speaker 4: of a miracle for the industry when they were starting
[4:01] Speaker 4: to worry that plastic demand would actually not ever be
[4:06] Speaker 4: quite what they wanted it to be. Here comes a
[4:09] Speaker 4: way to increase that demand exponentially.
[4:12] Speaker 3: Well, I think what we're seeing is just how much
[4:17] Speaker 3: the industry is relying on plastics to save it going forward.
[4:23] Speaker 4: This is Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center
[4:26] Speaker 4: for International Environmental Law. You heard from him earlier this
[4:30] Speaker 4: season too.
[4:31] Speaker 3: The industry has, on the one hand, been working on
[4:35] Speaker 3: an array of regulatory rollbacks, on working to close down
[4:42] Speaker 3: public opposition in public participation in decisions affecting a lot
[4:46] Speaker 3: of its operations. But on the plastic side, it's gone
[4:50] Speaker 3: still further and is actually seeking to exploit the current
[4:54] Speaker 3: crisis to say that the world needs.
[4:56] Speaker 6: To be using more, not less, plastic.
[5:00] Speaker 3: And it's doing this at a time where, again, even
[5:04] Speaker 3: before the crisis began, you had major producers of plastics
[5:09] Speaker 3: residents acknowledging that the industry's two hundred billion dollar investment
[5:14] Speaker 3: in infrastructure had been overly optimistic, that capacity was being overbuilt,
[5:20] Speaker 3: that prices for plastic resins and demand for plastic goods
[5:25] Speaker 3: were not growing at anywhere near what the industry had
[5:29] Speaker 3: been assuming it would.
[5:33] Speaker 4: Imman Westervelt, and this is drilled. We're continuing part one
[5:38] Speaker 4: of season six to day plastic pipelines. If you missed
[5:42] Speaker 4: the first two episodes, go back and start there. Our
[5:46] Speaker 4: story today the industry's COVID strategy. Did it work? Did
[5:51] Speaker 4: COVID save plastic? That's coming up after this quick break.
[6:06] Speaker 4: We heard in episode one of this series that plastic
[6:10] Speaker 4: was a way to make up for money that fracking
[6:14] Speaker 4: was not making. But there's another side to the explosion
[6:17] Speaker 4: of plastics over the past decade. It's the oil industry's
[6:21] Speaker 4: escape hatch.
[6:23] Speaker 1: You know.
[6:23] Speaker 7: Expiration spend is down seventy five percent from the peak,
[6:26] Speaker 7: seventy five percent over seventy five percent, and I don't
[6:29] Speaker 7: see it going up from that point. I see it
[6:31] Speaker 7: going down.
[6:32] Speaker 4: This is Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, talking about peak
[6:37] Speaker 4: oil in twenty twenty.
[6:39] Speaker 7: So I think life has changed over the last couple
[6:41] Speaker 7: of years, but it is important to acknowledge reality, and
[6:45] Speaker 7: that's what we've done.
[6:46] Speaker 4: Peak oil is the term that's used to talk about
[6:50] Speaker 4: this point where global oil demand will take a downward
[6:54] Speaker 4: turn and never really bounce back. And oil companies have
[6:58] Speaker 4: been seeing that point coming for a while in their
[7:02] Speaker 4: projections and annual reports. They've been talking about a decrease
[7:06] Speaker 4: in fossil fuel use in transportation and residential areas, but
[7:11] Speaker 4: they've also been talking about this other area where revenues
[7:15] Speaker 4: are going to increase, petrochemicals, especially plastic. And keep in mind,
[7:23] Speaker 4: while we have solar and wind as replacements for fossil
[7:28] Speaker 4: fuel energy in homes and cars, there aren't a ton
[7:33] Speaker 4: of great replacements for petrochemicals. That's one part of the
[7:38] Speaker 4: reason that the industry is banking on them. Here's Kingsmill Bond,
[7:42] Speaker 4: an analyst with the nonprofit Carbon Tracker who's been researching
[7:47] Speaker 4: the petrochemical industry over the last few years.
[7:50] Speaker 8: Plastics was always like something that you did on the
[7:53] Speaker 8: with your on on the side once once you use
[7:56] Speaker 8: the primary use of oil in transportation other areas, so
[8:00] Speaker 8: it's quite surprising that it's shot up the agenda. And
[8:03] Speaker 8: pretty much, as you say, what's happened over the last
[8:05] Speaker 8: few years is that all of the other growth drivers
[8:07] Speaker 8: of oil have kind of fallen by the wayside. So
[8:10] Speaker 8: cars used to be one of the four big growth vectors,
[8:13] Speaker 8: and and and as cars gone more efficient and electric
[8:16] Speaker 8: vehicles coming to the mix, people and now said, well,
[8:18] Speaker 8: you know, even the IA is now saying, actually, we've
[8:20] Speaker 8: probably reached peak demand for oil from cars, and then
[8:22] Speaker 8: the same thing's starting to happen with trucks. And obviously
[8:26] Speaker 8: in recent months, the COVID crisis has taken the steam
[8:29] Speaker 8: out of the the third big pillar, which was airlines,
[8:32] Speaker 8: and like petrochemicals, has become a kind of mantra for
[8:36] Speaker 8: the oil industry that thank goodness for petro chemicals because
[8:40] Speaker 8: you know, that's where all the growth lies. And it's
[8:42] Speaker 8: quite interesting if you if you take the data now
[8:44] Speaker 8: from VP and the i A, probably the two leading
[8:48] Speaker 8: forecasters of the entire system, then from our calculations, about
[8:53] Speaker 8: half the growth of oil demand in the next twenty
[8:56] Speaker 8: years in the i A numbers is actually from plastics.
[9:02] Speaker 4: So plastic is the savior for the fracking guys and
[9:05] Speaker 4: the oil guys. That's a lot writing on plastic demand
[9:11] Speaker 4: staying high and growing, which is why when COVID hit
[9:14] Speaker 4: it looked like a golden opportunity. Here's Carol Muffett again.
[9:19] Speaker 3: So what we're seeing in the face of COVID is
[9:22] Speaker 3: the industry trying to exploit this crisis in two very
[9:26] Speaker 3: distinct ways. First is to secure additional government investments and
[9:33] Speaker 3: additional regulatory rollbacks to make these projects move forward. And
[9:37] Speaker 3: the second is the push to exploit the idea of
[9:42] Speaker 3: COVID to argue not only against bands on the single
[9:46] Speaker 3: used to disposable plastics that many countries were moving forward with,
[9:51] Speaker 3: but also to argue that the world should be wrapping
[9:54] Speaker 3: ever more items in plastic packaging in the name of
[9:58] Speaker 3: hygiene and and public safety. And there's a remarkable there's
[10:03] Speaker 3: a remarkable instance of this where you have an industry
[10:07] Speaker 3: representative actually fantasizing, and I'm using this word very advisedly,
[10:13] Speaker 3: fantasizing that they'll be able to get the public to
[10:15] Speaker 3: rep bananas and apples in plastic packaging in the name
[10:19] Speaker 3: of hygiene and fighting the COVID pandemic. And I think
[10:23] Speaker 3: that that is a testament to how overly optimistic the
[10:29] Speaker 3: industry is about how.
[10:31] Speaker 6: It's going to be able to exploit COVID nineteen to
[10:35] Speaker 6: fill that gap in plastic demand.
[10:39] Speaker 4: Trade groups like the FPM and the American Chemistry Council
[10:42] Speaker 4: moved quickly to push out studies to state governors and
[10:47] Speaker 4: to the media showing that reusable bags might be COVID
[10:50] Speaker 4: spreaders governors in some conservative states main I'm looking at
[10:55] Speaker 4: you actually moved quicker to ban reusable bags grocery stores
[11:01] Speaker 4: and toss plastic bag bands. Then they did to implement
[11:05] Speaker 4: social distancing and masking guidelines. All of those studies were
[11:10] Speaker 4: industry funded, most of them were a decade or more old,
[11:14] Speaker 4: and none of them showed anything at all about the coronavirus.
[11:19] Speaker 4: One literally looked at a single reusable bag that someone
[11:23] Speaker 4: had vomited next to solid science there but the lack
[11:28] Speaker 4: of evidence did not stop the industry from succeeding in
[11:31] Speaker 4: its goal, at least for a while, which had some
[11:35] Speaker 4: environmental advocates worried the shift away from disposable bags was
[11:40] Speaker 4: a hard one behavioral change.
[11:42] Speaker 3: The industry's goal is clearly to reverse a behavioral shift
[11:48] Speaker 3: that was starting to really take root and grow.
[11:52] Speaker 4: But six months or so into the pandemic, the messaging
[11:55] Speaker 4: around plastic bags stopped working so well. Stores started to
[12:00] Speaker 4: allow reusable bags again, and it didn't take long for
[12:03] Speaker 4: consumers to get back on board with it. The dream
[12:06] Speaker 4: of wrapping every piece of fruit in plastic never materialized.
[12:11] Speaker 3: The challenge to face and the reason they're likely to fail,
[12:14] Speaker 3: is that the opposition is coming not only from consumers,
[12:17] Speaker 3: but increasingly from the communities who are on the front
[12:20] Speaker 3: lines of build out of plastics, who are working to
[12:23] Speaker 3: stop these plants from being built, increasingly from investors who
[12:26] Speaker 3: are increasingly skeptical about about the prospects of.
[12:30] Speaker 6: Sinking money into this industry.
[12:32] Speaker 3: Clearly, the industry's goal is to see this opportunity to
[12:35] Speaker 3: trigger a short term increase in packaging that takes advantage
[12:39] Speaker 3: of fear. The problem that they face is that fear
[12:44] Speaker 3: is momentary.
[12:48] Speaker 4: The pandemic isn't quite over yet. But what the early
[12:52] Speaker 4: numbers are telling us is that the industry's COVID strategy
[12:55] Speaker 4: did not work. They were able to drive a momentary
[12:59] Speaker 4: spike in demand, but as Muffett predicted, it was in
[13:03] Speaker 4: fact momentary, and according to carbon tracker analyst Kingsmill Bond,
[13:08] Speaker 4: although the pandemic drove demand up in some areas, it
[13:11] Speaker 4: actually drove it down in others, so much so that
[13:15] Speaker 4: it canceled out the increase the plastic needed for new cars,
[13:19] Speaker 4: for example, or planes, and that actually made for an
[13:22] Speaker 4: overall decline in demand for plastic. Here's Bond explaining the
[13:27] Speaker 4: impacts of that decline.
[13:29] Speaker 8: What's the impact on plastic demand of increasing demand for
[13:33] Speaker 8: medical plastic for ppeus and gloves and stuff. And then
[13:36] Speaker 8: what's the impact of lower demand because of the economic shocks.
[13:39] Speaker 8: So we're buying less cars and we come to the shops,
[13:42] Speaker 8: so we're buying less less clothes, and because you use
[13:45] Speaker 8: a thousand times or more plastic in a car to
[13:48] Speaker 8: what you use in a mask, the actual impact is
[13:51] Speaker 8: to have a four percent decline day estimate in plastics
[13:54] Speaker 8: demand this year, and not to state the obviously a
[13:55] Speaker 8: four percent decline in demand and a four percent increase
[13:58] Speaker 8: in capacity to you know, things looking quite ugly.
[14:01] Speaker 4: So the industry continued to build out more plastic manufacturing
[14:06] Speaker 4: capability and it anticipated an increase in demand, but instead
[14:12] Speaker 4: there's been a four percent decrease in demand at the
[14:15] Speaker 4: same time that we've seen a four percent increase in
[14:19] Speaker 4: capacity last and eight percent gap between supply and demand,
[14:24] Speaker 4: which is a pretty big gap. The industry, of course,
[14:28] Speaker 4: still thinks it's going to close that gap.
[14:30] Speaker 9: Do you think that even before this pandemic that they
[14:34] Speaker 9: are also just sort of convinced in their abilities to
[14:38] Speaker 9: create demand where there is then that like they just
[14:42] Speaker 9: figured that they would that they would find a way.
[14:46] Speaker 3: I think that is certainly the case, and I think
[14:49] Speaker 3: it is the case for the very simple reason that
[14:53] Speaker 3: for decades that strategy has worked.
[14:56] Speaker 6: That strategy has been effective for decades.
[14:59] Speaker 3: This is an industry that has been very good at
[15:01] Speaker 3: creating consumer demand, creating markets where they didn't exist, for
[15:06] Speaker 3: products that people weren't looking for and didn't necessarily need.
[15:11] Speaker 3: And so it's you know, it may come across as
[15:13] Speaker 3: over confidence, but it's overconfidence been built on decades of
[15:17] Speaker 3: an industry effectively exploiting its understandings of consumer behavior.
[15:24] Speaker 4: For decades, the fossil fuel industry has successfully told one
[15:27] Speaker 4: story that it simply supplies a demand that you are
[15:33] Speaker 4: the one buying and using its products. So if you're
[15:36] Speaker 4: worried about the impacts of those products, all you need
[15:39] Speaker 4: to do is reduce your consumption. And don't get me wrong,
[15:43] Speaker 4: it's absolutely necessary for individuals to reduce their carbon footprints,
[15:48] Speaker 4: especially those of us in the global North, and especially
[15:51] Speaker 4: the wealthiest individuals. But that action in the absence of
[15:56] Speaker 4: regulating supply will never work because the industry doesn't just
[16:02] Speaker 4: respond to demand. It works really hard to generate.
[16:06] Speaker 3: It's pervasive and It's a corrosive myth, this this idea
[16:11] Speaker 3: that oil and gas companies and plastics producers are just
[16:16] Speaker 3: producing their products because.
[16:18] Speaker 6: The demand is there.
[16:19] Speaker 3: When you look behind that, what you find is, in truth,
[16:22] Speaker 3: these companies have, you know, very detailed strategies to create
[16:27] Speaker 3: the demand. And nowhere is that clearer than in the
[16:31] Speaker 3: context of plastics. You know, there's no other commodity where
[16:34] Speaker 3: that story of we've got we've got a product, we
[16:38] Speaker 3: need a market for it is clear. And we're seeing
[16:40] Speaker 3: that with the massive buildout of new infrastructure for plastics
[16:44] Speaker 3: here in the US, not because we need it, there's
[16:48] Speaker 3: a glut of plastics on the market, there's no excess demand,
[16:52] Speaker 3: but because there's all of this cheap natural gas, and
[16:56] Speaker 3: so the industry builds out this infrastructure and then looks
[16:59] Speaker 3: to persuade young people to buy more plastics, or increasingly,
[17:06] Speaker 3: to persuade the Global South to buy more plastics, all
[17:09] Speaker 3: while blaming the Global South and Asia for the plastics crisis.
[17:15] Speaker 3: I think one of the starkest ironies in our work
[17:17] Speaker 3: on plastics has actually been seeing simultaneously Exon and the
[17:24] Speaker 3: oil industry and the American Chemistry Council saying yes, plastics
[17:27] Speaker 3: is a problem, but the problem is originating in China
[17:31] Speaker 3: and Asia. And on the other hand, finding a speech
[17:34] Speaker 3: from a vice president of Exxon Mobile delivered in China
[17:39] Speaker 3: saying Asia needs more plastics and we Exon Mobile want
[17:42] Speaker 3: I help you make them. And for anyone who has
[17:45] Speaker 3: worked for as long as I have in the climate context,
[17:49] Speaker 3: that story that blamed China, story that blame the individual,
[17:53] Speaker 3: blame the consumer, story is very very familiar.
[18:00] Speaker 4: Can people do? How are folks like Diane Wilson and
[18:03] Speaker 4: Texas Sharon Levine in Louisiana managing to successfully fight back?
[18:09] Speaker 4: And what can their fights tell us about the global
[18:12] Speaker 4: push to tackle this problem? That story next time, next
[18:16] Speaker 4: time on drilled.
[18:19] Speaker 1: The twenty million that we put into this co op
[18:24] Speaker 1: was a chance at reviving our to be auson.
[18:27] Speaker 6: I mean, it's going to devastate it.
[18:29] Speaker 4: I mean I think for a long time we're just
[18:31] Speaker 4: going to be playing whackamall with facilities that have already
[18:35] Speaker 4: been proposed. Wow, okay, so there's already twelve other industrial.
[18:40] Speaker 9: Sites in Saint James Parish.
[18:43] Speaker 2: Right, and more being proposed, like including SoC We's even
[18:48] Speaker 2: a methanol another pet can facility just Downriver from Formosa.
[18:55] Speaker 4: Drilled is an original production of the Critical Frequency podcast Network.
[19:00] Speaker 4: The show is reported, written, and hosted by me Amy Westervelt.
[19:04] Speaker 4: Our producer this season is Juliana Bradley. Our editor is
[19:08] Speaker 4: Julia Ritchie. Our theme song this season is Death Song
[19:12] Speaker 4: by be Beeman. Additional music for the season composed by
[19:16] Speaker 4: Elliott Peltzman. Our artwork for the season is done by
[19:20] Speaker 4: Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton at
[19:24] Speaker 4: the First Amendment Project. You can find additional reporting and
[19:29] Speaker 4: photos for this season on our Twitter feed at We
[19:32] Speaker 4: Are Drilled, or online at drillednews dot com. If you're
[19:37] Speaker 4: a fan of the show, please consider supporting us in
[19:40] Speaker 4: two ways. One, if you want to spend some money
[19:44] Speaker 4: and get some extra bonus content at learn the episodes,
[19:47] Speaker 4: check out our patreon at patreon dot com slash Drilled.
[19:51] Speaker 4: You can also support us by giving us a rating
[19:54] Speaker 4: or review in Apple Podcasts. It really helps us find
[19:58] Speaker 4: new listeners and combat the army of climate denier trolls
[20:02] Speaker 4: that are constantly trying to tank our ratings. Thanks for
[20:06] Speaker 4: doing that, and we'll see you next week.

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.