Sometimes I think that my focus on plastics-related news fogs my judgment about how much the rest of the world is paying attention.
Maybe that's because plastics really are under the microscope these days.
When friends, neighbors and family members share stories with me that they've seen about microplastics, plastics bans, PFAS, recycling — the list is pretty lengthy — I get the feeling that the news media is really focused on plastics.
When my nonplastics friends send me those stories, I tend to say something like, "Yeah, I've seen that," or "We covered that last week." I'm not a great conversationalist, I'm afraid.
But then I do the same thing myself. I find myself sharing messages like "Amna Nawaz just interviewed Rob Bonta on PBS Newshour about California's lawsuit against ExxonMobil. He didn't say anything new."
Is that a message that would inspire you to click on my link and watch the recording?
Another example, a message I sent today: "I was surprised to see the 'black plastic' story was the lead item in my email from The Atlantic. I wonder if that's the same for everyone, or if their emails are curated based on what I read?"
But I've also had a couple of experiences recently that lead me to believe that the public isn't super-focused on plastics issues.
Last week I met with group of environmental journalists from Bolivia who visited our office through a program with Michigan State University. I came prepared to talk about environmental justice, recycling and greenwashing. But they were only interested in talking with my Automotive News colleagues about electric vehicles.
"Anyone here want to talk more about plastics?" I asked at the end of the session. Not a peep.
Another example came back in September with the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
The afternoon before the debate, I started what became a string of messages about how we would cover plastics-related issues that would come up that evening.
Surely they'd talk about plastics, I figured. A few days before Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21, he had released a comprehensive report on plastics policy that included restricting government purchases of single-use plastics.
A month after that, the White House announced that it would back putting caps on virgin resin production in the United Nations plastics treaty talks.
Those are hot issues, right? And on top of that, Harris hadn't had much time to define herself, so I figured that Trump would bring up her previous stances against fracking and in favor of banning plastic straws as a way of painting her as a San Francisco liberal.
So we had a plan in place, and we were ready to cover anything and everything that the candidates had to say about plastics. We were prepared to post the stories and send breaking news alerts to our readers with details and context about the issues.
But you know how this one turned out. They didn't talk about plastics, or even fracking.
That's not to say that manufacturing and sustainability aren't hot issues this year. In Michigan, where I live, we've been bombed with TV ads about EV mandates and competition from China.
But regardless of who wins this presidential election, I don't expect analysts will be talking about how their position on banning plastic straws made a difference.
Don Loepp is editor of Plastics News and author of the Plastics Blog. Follow him on X @donloepp.