In this episode of Promo Insiders, senior writer John Corrigan talks with Andy Keller, founder and CEO of California-based ChicoBag Company (asi/44811), about the COVID-19 crisis disrupting the bag market. Keller’s business has been hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic, in large part due to reusable bags being discouraged because of fears that they spread the disease.

Podcast Chapters
1:08: How ChicoBag has been impacted
2:02: Conflicting scientific studies
5:14: Letter to San Francisco Bay Area health officers
6:52: Fearing temporary restrictions become permanent
8:35: Popularity of reusable bags
11:03: Pivoting to reusable face masks
12:22: Bag styles that are selling during the pandemic
14:12: How the industry can rally behind reusable bags

States, cities and stores have changed their tune over the past few months, lifting plastic bag bans and restricting the use of reusable bags. Even California, the pacesetter of the anti-plastic movement, has suspended its 4-year-old ban after certain studies have suggested that reusable bags, when not cleaned properly, can become veritable petri dishes for bacteria and the like. In order to better protect their workers and customers, retail, grocery and plastic industry advocates have rallied for plastics to be reinstated at least for the time being.

Andy Keller, founder and CEO of California-based ChicoBag Company

Keller points to environmentalists and other ban advocates who’ve called studies linking reusable bags to increased disease spread dubious. They note that reusable bags are not necessarily any more or less contaminated than other surfaces at stores. Keller also argues that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have all given guidance supporting the notion that reusable bags don’t pose a health threat.

In a letter to San Francisco Bay Area health officers, Keller and a coalition of business owners, nonprofits, academics and concerned citizens urged for the current reusable bag restrictions to not become permanent. In this podcast, Keller goes over the letter and calls out the contradictions in allowing plastics to be used during the pandemic.