Kickstart: The costs of COVID-19

The numbers coming across our collective desks the past few weeks have made clear how much of an impact the COVID-19 crisis is making on the industry. Millions of people unemployed, an economy dropping by nearly 5 percent in the first quarter, and on April 30, Dow Inc. announced it would temporarily idle five plants in the Americas.

Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling said the sites include three polyethylene and two elastomer plants located on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in Argentina. Their total annual capacity is 2 billion pounds.

The coronavirus economy is also blamed as prices dropped for commodity thermoplastics in April, and they will likely fall again in May.

"We are expecting the demand in May to be lower than April, as some pre-social distancing material reached downstream facilities in April," said market analyst Ashish Chitalia, who is with the Wood Mackenzie consulting firm in Houston. "But May buying will be scarce and on an as-needed basis."

Frank Esposito is on both stories.

Industry demand, obviously, depends on the end market. Consider two recent outlooks from analysts.

The Freedonia Group analyzed expectations for disposable medical gloves, where there has been double-digit growth for all types of gloves, including PVC, latex and thermoplastic elastomer. Once the global pandemic calms down, developing countries still will drive increases in demand, with a forecast of 5.7 percent annual growth through 2024.

The auto market, meanwhile, can expect a 22 percent drop in auto sales for 2020 vs. 2019, according to IHS Markit.

In North America, production is expected to fall to 12.2 million units, compared with 16.3 million in 2019 — a big change from forecasts that had expected the industry to be steady for the next few years.

When Plastics News launched the new Sustainable Plastics magazine at the start of 2020, everyone knew sustainability was an important issue for the industry to face. Just consider all of the discussion on a circular economy during K 2019 for one example.

But the rise of COVID-19 has complicated that story, since single-use plastics are now at the heart of a very different sustainability spotlight because they are so vital in health care.

So for the second issue of Sustainable Plastics, available to all now as a digital download, Editor Karen Laird puts a focus on the plastics industry's response to the pandemic.

"The crisis has afforded the plastic industry with 'its finest hour' as company after company set up or participated in initiatives to tackle the shortages of personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer for health care workers," she writes.