A creeping crisis when an urgent crisis arises: The reprioritization of plastic pollution issues during COVID-19

Abstract

Single-use plastics (SUPs) are increasingly polluting terrestrial, coastal, and marine habits, contributing to the creeping “plastic crisis.” The COVID-19 pandemic provided a window of opportunity for decision makers to change the degree of urgency and responsiveness to this crisis and for policy entrepreneurs and industry who are against reducing plastic consumption to influence decision makers to change their position on various plastic-related issues. Hygiene/health concerns have been used as a justification by governments and industry to increase the use of SUPs resulting in a reversal in, or a reprioritization of, policy decisions. Through the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), I examine how creeping crises become secondary to urgent crises through agenda setting that is influenced and leveraged by policy entrepreneurs. I explore examples of such plastic policy decisions finding that they have been politically driven and influenced by entrepreneurs and industry rather than being primarily based on health concerns. Related Articles: Diaz-Kope, Luisa, and John C. Morris. 2022. “Why Collaborate? Exploring the Role of Organizational Motivations in Cross-sector Watershed Collaboration.” Politics & Policy 50(3): 516–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12470. Gerlach, John David, Laron K. Williams, and Colleen E. Forcina. 2013. “The Science-Natural Resource Policy Relationship: How Aspects of Diffusion Theory Explain Data Selection for Making Biodiversity Management Decisions.” Politics & Policy 41(3): 326–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12017. Neill, Katharine A., and John C. Morris. 2012. “A Tangled Web of Principals and Agents: Examining the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill through a Principal–Agent Lens.” Politics & Policy 40(4): 629–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00371.x.