Barriers coming down at some businesses

The clear plastic barriers installed at checkout counters, offices and restaurants, as one of the lines of defense to stop the spread of COVID-19, are coming down at many businesses and schools.

The Publix grocery chain removed the clear acrylic partitions installed two years ago at its 1,300 stores. The locations are mainly in Florida, Georgia and Alabama and other Southern states.

"As a result of the decrease in COVID-19 cases and wide availability of vaccines, Publix is removing the clear plastic shields from registers, customer service desks and pharmacies," spokeswoman Maria Brous said in an email. "We have stored the shields upon their removal."

Other businesses plan to permanently take down the barriers, which are predominantly made of acrylic, polycarbonate and thin-gauge glycol-modified PET — all recyclable materials but not widely accepted at places where the public recycles.

This should be a learning moment for the industry and public, according to Joey McCabe, vice president of Faulkner Plastics Inc. in Hialeah, Fla., and a member of the Overland Park, Kan.-based International Association of Plastics Distribution trade group.

IAPD formed in 1956 to bring together distributors, fabricators, manufacturers and recyclers of performance plastics.

"We need to let people know these barriers are indeed recyclable, just not through the traditional route," McCabe said in a phone interview. "The recycling infrastructure isn't there for the general public, but there are facilities like mine across the country to properly dispose of it."

Founded by his father, Joe McCabe Sr., in 1966, Faulkner Plastics is a distributor and fabricator of sheet, film, rods and tubes. The business also takes back products made of those plastic components and grinds them into chip-size pieces for recycling into sheet again by another company in its supply chain.

"Right now they pick up a couple tons every couple weeks," McCabe said. "Obviously the volume could increase tremendously if people start bringing plastic barriers to us en masse."

McCabe was pleased when desk barriers from a Florida law firm were dropped off last year after he promoted a recycling drive for the products, which were scarce on a global basis not too long ago.

Sales of clear sheet tripled to roughly $750 million in the U.S. after the pandemic hit in March 2020, according to Bloomberg. Businesses and schools scrambled for protection from the respiratory droplets that health authorities suspected were spreading the coronavirus.

Three years' worth of acrylic was produced in the span of three months, mostly for personal protective equipment, McCabe said. He has been concerned all along that once people feel more comfortable, the barriers may start showing up in landfills.

To begin promoting the recyclability of these products, McCabe organized a barrier drive last summer. At a city council meeting and on Facebook, McCabe told elected officials and the community not to throw barriers away but get them to his business or one like it. However, soon after Faulkner Plastics kicked off its barrier recycling program, COVID variants gave businesses pause about removing them for good, McCabe said.

"Recycling barriers has been a slow roll. It hasn't caught fire yet so we're in a position to push the educational angle," McCabe said. "I think the plastics industry as a whole needs to raise awareness that these products don't belong in a dumpster. They are indeed recyclable if they reach the correct point of the supply chain."

Stewart Levy, president of TKO Polymers Inc. in Atlanta, agreed. He said he is fielding questions from businesses looking to go barrier-free.

Levy sees "limited amounts" of barriers coming down where he lives and works, he said in an emailed response to a Plastics News survey. But no one has turned to his business yet with used sheet for recycling.

"We have had only inquiries at this point," Levy said.

In the meantime, the highly transmissible omicron subvariant called BA.2 has become the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States. Several states reported an increase in cases in late March, including New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. That may give businesses pause again about removing barriers.

For other companies, the clear plastic barriers are becoming regular fixtures.

Plastic shields still separate many airline service employees and mass-transit drivers from the public, Jim Richards, an IAPD board officer, pointed out in a Zoom interview.

"Some companies have gone all in and continue to create more permanent types of barrier structures," Richards said. "It's hard to tell employees that it was necessary to create a level of protection, but now it doesn't matter."

Experts have been divided about how effective the dividers are at keeping people safe from COVID-19, which spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks. Tiny respiratory droplets called aerosols carry the virus, and anyone within 6 feet can breathe it into their lungs.

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted at a Georgia school last year found desk and table barriers didn't correlate to lower infection rates like mask mandates and ventilation improvements. Still, there is consensus that plastic barriers block large respiratory droplets and do make sense in certain settings, like counters where employees face people at close range through the workday.

"People now say that for colds and flus and other things it does create a protection between the employees and customers," Richards said. "I flew out of Atlanta recently and there's not a gate counter without a barrier still up throughout. And you can tell by their conditions that many are new."

Other businesses are upgrading more rudimentary plastic barriers installed during the 2020 frenzy that led to the extreme global shortage of clear acrylic, PC and PETG sheet. Some businesses are replacing less permanent barriers like shower curtains and polyethylene sheet and switching to permanent fixtures that have finished edges.

"These businesses had installed some type of barrier to meet local or state requirements to have people in their establishments. Or they wanted it for personal comfort," Richards said. "Now they want it to look more professional. They're putting up a more attractive and permanent barrier that is an acrylic, PC or PETG they couldn't get ahold of that at the time."

IAPD President Deborah Ragsdale, who is also the director of relations for Polymer Industries LLC in Henagar, Ala., said she lives in the deep South, where a lot of businesses are sticking with the barriers unlike Publix.

"I see no barriers coming down. We may be quite a bit behind," Ragsdale said during the Zoom interview. "I think a lot of people in this area are just taking extra precautions against the flu and different things coming along. The barriers are ideal, and they're leaving them."

For the businesses removing the barriers, IAPD continues to work toward closing the loop on all of its members' products, Ragsdale said.

"Recycling is at the forefront of what we do so that none of these products are landfilled. We're finding a place to reuse it. That has always been our focus and even more so now," Ragsdale said.

Richards said demand for products with recycled content has grown and the performance plastics industry is responding.

"Our channel partners have recycling programs. They know what materials are going to specific customers," Richards said. "They can capture that product and get it back to recyclers or manufacturers. Then, it is put it into products that can be marketed as eco-friendly with post-consumed recyclables."

Piedmont Plastics, a Charlotte, N.C.-based distributor of plastic sheet, rod, tube and film products with about 50 stocking locations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, has a comprehensive recycling program, according to IAPD officials. The privately held company lists "sustainability" as a service on its website, along with cutting, fabrication and film conversion.

Piedmont customers can make arrangements with a stocking site to recycle scrap material; post-industrial waste like skylights, displays, signs and packaging products; and post-consumer waste including acrylic, polycarbonate, ABS and styrene.

Industry takeback programs are the main recycling initiative because materials recovery facilities aren't equipped or staffed to collect and sort the varieties of clear sheet.

"The bigger challenges are the logistics," Richards said. "You can't mix the materials and run a product. There is a difference between a sheet of acrylic and a water bottle or a sheet of PC and a plastic bag. They're all different polymers, so you have to provide a way to get clean streams."

IAPD lobbies with other plastics associations for better municipal recycling facilities.

"It does need a more comprehensive, more municipal kind of approach," IAPD CEO Susan Avery said. "Our members are doing what they can, but it really does come down to getting a more comprehensive program in place."

Some plastic barriers are being permanently removed because there is no real evidence they work. No study has shown that clear plastic barriers actually control the virus, according to Joseph Allen of Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

After the pandemic was declared, top health authorities pointed to larger droplets as the key transmission culprits. Many researchers disagreed, including Allen, an indoor air researcher who warned tinier floating droplets that can't be blocked by plastic shields also spread the virus.

The trend to install the barriers is a result of the original misguidance on droplets, Allen said.

"We spent a lot of time and money focused on hygiene theater," Allen told Bloomberg.

Plastic barriers were known to stop germs at salad bars, they were affordable, and they brought some comfort to people on either side, according to John Macomber, a Harvard Business School senior lecturer.

"Sort of like taking our shoes off at the airport," Macomber told Bloomberg. "Or hotels where they put the piece of paper around the toilet seat to show the maid has been there. Businesses try to signal they've done something, but that something isn't necessarily very deep."

However, David Edwards, an aerosol science expert and professor at Harvard University, told NBC News that clear plastic barriers can offer some protection in terms of increasing the distance between someone who's infected and others around them. If a cashier sneezes, the droplets may only have to travel 3 feet to reach the customer. With a plastic barrier, the droplets must travel more like 10 feet. The farther that infected droplets have to travel, the less likely they are to reach another person.

"The more layers of protection you have, the better," Edwards said.

Barrier buyers also have new options, such as antimicrobial sheet that prevents germs from growing on the surface.

Cameron Mitchell Restaurants upgraded guest partitions in their 36-restaurant chain with Amgard-brand antimicrobial acrylic sheet, which Richards said is the next generation in safety shields. Available in polycarbonate sheet, too, Amgard is formulated with laboratory-tested silver ion technology that protects the sheet surface from microorganism growth.

"This was developed during the pandemic, so it didn't get a lot of traction in the heat of COVID, but now people are noticing the different alternatives available with silver ion technology that kills microorganisms on contact," Richards said.

Richards is also vice president of sales for the industrial division of Columbus, Ohio-based Plaskolite, which is one of North America's leading manufacturers of acrylic sheet, polycarbonate sheet, acrylic polymers, ABS, PETG, acrylic mirror and hard coatings. Plaskolite developed a polycarbonate partition for buses and mass transit called Tuffak DG, as in "driver guard," to reduce virus transmissions without inhibiting the driver's vision. The product is also impact-resistant and comes with a seven-year warranty.

"This provides security and PPE. It has a dual role," Richards said. "What was designed to create a barrier from COVID also provides a level of security for drivers."

Demand for clear plastic sheet hasn't returned fully to pre-pandemic levels, so capacity is available to produce more material if needed.

"It's stable in terms of supply," Richards said. "Raw material costs are increasing, but the ability to produce and meet the current needs is pretty balanced."

Two years ago, the industry was in a frenzy, in part because 2019 had been a slow year. Inventories had come down just ahead of skyrocketing demand.

"Manufacturing levels were rightsized to meet what demand looked to be in 2020," Richards said. "Then, the first week in March 2020, our European inventories were wiped out."

Doctors' offices, pharmacies, grocery stores and other essential business bought up supplies as restaurants, schools and other groups put in orders.

U.S. demand was even greater. Manufacturers stepped up — so much so Richards said, "We have multiple years of plastics produced in 2020 that still has to get through the channel."

The good supply should bode well for trade shows, which are making a comeback. Before the pandemic, trade shows created a lot of the demand for acrylic, PC and PETG.

COVID-19 brought two years of in-person event cancellations and virtual forums. That dynamic is still in flux.

"Trade shows are slowly starting to come back," Richards said. "But that avenue for acrylic, PC and PETG hasn't been anywhere near it was pre-pandemic. We'd see a startup and then things would shut down. We're having a convention. No, it's now virtual. All these dynamics have had an impact in terms of anything coming back to what you'd consider pre-pandemic normalcy."

As for the recycling of performance plastics, McCabe said he is optimistic about what can be achieved as a new normalcy emerges.

"We can combat 'plastic' being that ugly word — at least on the engineered side," McCabe said. "We're not talking about packaging and single-use products. We're talking products that have an integral purpose in our daily lives and giving them a smaller carbon footprint. We're excited about this."