It took one week after the first U.S. case of Covid-19 with no overseas connection for Starbucks Corp. to temporarily ban customers from bringing in reusable coffee mugs. Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, was disappointed. Public health comes first, of course, but as the founder of the grassroots Beyond Plastics project, Enck had her doubts that returning to disposable cups would make anyone safer. Currency, for instance, is a notorious germ-carrier. “Will Starbucks now stop accepting cash?” she says.
These are nervous times for activists working to wean the world off plastics. Until the ...