Plastic waste management has remained a persistent problem for decades. The challenge of battling the plastic waste footprint has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The dire need for the global population to adopt several disease curbing methods and hygiene related practices, resulted in a surge in plastic waste generation in many forms particularly single use PPE related to domestic and medical waste. The goal to mitigate or minimize the spread of the COVID virus resulted in people making behavioral changes that caused a direct impact on the solid waste composition that communities have to manage. We examine some of these behavioral changes to study if they may be temporal patterns of change or have further lasting impacts that can define or impact the solid waste generation and plastic waste foot print of the future. Our study also focuses on strategies, recommendations and community engagement and involvement in managing the environmental risks linked with plastic waste footprint.
