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16 Dec, 7 tweets, 3 min read
After decades of bitter fights, environmentalists seemed to be winning the war against single-use plastics, until 2020.

Covid-19 raised fears that reusable goods might lead to infections, leading Americans to ditch their reusable totes for plastic-bags bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Another unavoidable sight of 2020 has been the blue face mask lying on the sidewalk.

Whether it’s masks, plastics straws, or grocery bags, these objects don’t pollute much on their own, but they're indicative of a larger issue within the world of waste twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
2020 also brought false memes about recycling bins being a big lie.

Between cooking more at home and buying more takeout, we are generating a lot more plastic waste, so keep on putting those containers in the bin, and clean them out before you do so bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
It wouldn’t be 2020 if we didn’t touch on toilet paper.

Interestingly enough, recycling issues did in fact contribute to problems in the TP supply chain bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
In the early days of the pandemic, people were bored, locked down and cleaning out their closets. The only problem? There was nowhere to send their donations.

Thrift stores faced crisis after crisis this year, and are only just beginning to recover bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Because of store closures and various lockdown restrictions, the world is experiencing a record year for online package deliveries.

Going into the holidays, we’re bound to see this impacting the recycling industry bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
We couldn’t talk about garbage without mentioning the heroes who have to deal with our trash: garbage workers on the front lines.

Unfortunately, cities and governments have failed to support and protect sanitation service workers throughout this pandemic bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

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More from @bopinion

Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
17 Dec
Is the Christmas gift you ordered online delayed?

In normal times, package pileups would be a catastrophe for logistics companies. But there's nothing normal about 2020 trib.al/74fyIlR
In the spring, it was toilet paper shortages. Now there's a new supply chain nightmare:

A lack of recyclable materials is causing a shortage of small boxes, the one thing that’s integral to the e-commerce industry, especially during the holidays twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
Consumers are avoiding physical stores and expect quick shipments, so there’s an increased demand for packaging:

⏳Lead times are stretched out
🎁Consumers are buying last-minute gifts
🚚UPS and FedEx are at peak capacity trib.al/74fyIlR Image
Read 9 tweets
Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
16 Dec
Now that Bitcoin has topped $20,000 for the first time, should you shift your hard-earned cash into digital currencies?

History suggests caution should be your watchword, no matter how strong the FOMO may be trib.al/Ytoljve Image
Institutional investors might be starting to take cryptocurrencies more seriously.

One River Asset Management has set up a fund company that will have about $1 billion in Bitcoin and fellow digital coin Ether by early next year suggests trib.al/Ytoljve Image
There’s clearly serious money involved:

CEO Eric Peters told our colleague Erik Schatzker that billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard is buying a stake in the new business, called One River Digital Asset Management trib.al/Ytoljve Image
Read 12 tweets
Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
12 Dec
In 1797, President George Washington was determined to unambiguously hand over the nation’s reins for the first time.

He attended the inauguration ceremony of John Adams to show his support. Unfortunately, Adams struggled to follow Washington’s lead bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Adams wouldn’t be the last leader to act out during these critical moments for American democracy.

On his first full day as president, John Adams found the time to complain to his wife in a letter about Washington’s magnanimous behavior bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Washington, he wrote, “seemed to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him say, ‘Ay, I am fairly out and you fairly in! See which of us will be happiest!”

Indeed, Washington’s return to Mount Vernon was a happy one bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 12 tweets
Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
11 Dec
Last month, Senator Cory Booker introduced legislation to support Black farmers and encourage more African Americans to enter agriculture.

He’ll have his work cut out for him -- disparities in the U.S. agricultural economy are centuries in the making trib.al/Z1eDQIB
In 1920, 14.7% of American farmers were Black. Today, they represent only 1.4% while also:

➡️Earning less money
➡️Receiving less government support
➡️Occupying smaller farms on average
trib.al/Z1eDQIB
After the Civil War, General William T. Sherman’s famous bequest, “40 acres and a mule,” was overturned by President Andrew Johnson.

The Southern Homestead Act was passed in 1866 with the goal of giving land to freed slaves, but few could take advantage trib.al/Z1eDQIB
Read 11 tweets
Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
10 Dec
Vaccines can be scary. You’re asking healthy people to roll up their sleeves and take a mysterious shot.

But the Covid-19 vaccine trial results should be reassuring: The associated risks are tiny compared to risks associated with getting the virus itself trib.al/euxV1y6
The risks of taking a vaccine are minuscule compared to the struggles we’ve faced in the pandemic and our interventions to try to stop it:

💵The economic insecurity
📚The lost education
🚪The deep isolation twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
Recent surveys reported in the Wall Street Journal this week show about 27% of Americans say they would not get a vaccine. So did 40% of Europeans.

And the fear of vaccines is likely to get worse trib.al/euxV1y6
Read 11 tweets
Bloomberg Opinion Profile picture
9 Dec
The slow return to the office of summer and early fall appears to be over, for now.

Office occupancy in the 10 big metropolitan areas has been declining since late October and hit 24.78% last week trib.al/EDQY4Wb
Last week’s jobs report contained similar news.

The share of employed Americans working at home because of the pandemic rose from 21.2% in October to 21.8% in November, the first monthly increase trib.al/EDQY4Wb
To some extent this is as it should be.

Amid a deadly pandemic remote work has slowed the spread of disease while enabling economic activity to continue in ways that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago trib.al/EDQY4Wb
Read 9 tweets

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