Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on the bioplastics industry. Indeed, during this pandemic, there has been a surge in demand for single-use plastics to make face shields or personal protective equipment and food delivery packaging. For example, Japan needed more than 600 million facemasks in the month of April 2020. In addition, virgin plastic has become cheaper than biodegradable plastics due to lower oil prices in 2020, which has had a negative impact on the demand for bioplastics. However, COVID-19 has had a favorable impact on Green industries. Hence, the demand and use of Green chemicals has increased in industries such as home care products, food, feed, and pharmaceuticals due to increased awareness of healthy living. The impact on certain household cleaning products, such as surface disinfectants and laundry care products, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements, and certain pharmaceuticals, was particularly high in 2020 and 2021. The sale of these products increased up to 96%.