According to an April 13, 2020 Wired story https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-pandemic-recycling-crisis/ “… recyclables like bottles and cans and cardboard are, in many places, going straight to the dump …; it doesn’t make economic sense … to process and sell recycled materials if they end up being more expensive than … virgin plastic …; no one notices, that the quality of the waste is going down; … single-use plastics are more popular than ever as people panic-buy; … restaurants … sell you a to-go bag full of individually wrapped dishes …; many recyclers have shut down in response to the pandemic. Curbside recycling programs have been suspended by dozens of county and local governments ... Recycling facilities are struggling to figure out how to protect their workers, who are concerned about virus exposure from handling materials … All told, the coronavirus crisis is producing more and more waste that’s either contaminated or not economical to recycle … [There] needs to be a significant paradigm shift in human behavior where plastic is deemed as a resource and not a waste …” #Recycling #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic #FoodPackaging