CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition announced this week that Plum Organics is the latest company to join its How2Recycle Label program. Plum joins 30 other participating companies — including most recently, Kellogg and McDonald’s — committed to educating consumers on packaging recyclability by providing clear on-package instructions.
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VWR, provider of laboratory products, services and solutions, has launched a new recycling initiative that allows U.S. customers to recycle a variety of single-use garments.Through "Gown Up, Give Back”, VWR hopes to help reduce the millions of pounds of single-use garments sent to the landfill each year. The plastic waste from these garments is recycled into resin that is used to make permanent infrastructure, including composite decking, railroad ties and drainage pipes. The recycling program provides a waste collection, shipment and recycling solution for most single-use garments as long as they are free from contamination and purchased from VWR.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Carbios, a French green chemistry company specializing in technologies enabling the recovery of plastic waste and the production of bio-polymers, has announced a significant step forward in the development of its controlled biodegradation process for disposable soft plastics.With its new process, Carbios says it obtained completely biodegradable plastic material in domestic conditions. The material, comprised of an oil-based polymer and an enzyme, loses 50 percent of its mass in 15 days and completely biodegrades in less than three months, making Carbios’ technology an effective potential industrial answer to legal concerns around how to better control the end of life of disposable and short-life plastics.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Last week, shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow (AYS), along with shareholders representing $11.8 billion worth of shares, presented a proposal to Mondelez International asking that the company make the switch to recyclable packaging.The resolution, which received 28.4 percent shareholder support, was presented at the giant food manufacturer’s annual meeting.The world’s largest snack food company, Mondelez International produces brands such as Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Trident gum, and Philadelphia cream cheese. It comprises the global snack and food brands of the former Kraft Foods, from which it split in 2012.
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Music producer and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams announced last weekend at New York Fashion Week a new partnership with denim label G-Star Raw to create a line of jeans made with plastic collected from the oceans.
"The oceans need us now," Williams said as he announced the collaboration between G-Star and his textile company, Bionic Yarn, which Williams co-founded in 2010 to produce fabric from recycled plastic. The new collection, "Raw for the Oceans," which will be the first denim collection to incorporate marine plastic, will debut in stores and online on August 15.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
We’re hearing more and more often about inventive new ways companies are turning waste into valuable resources — from turning everything from CO2 and methane gases to human and food waste into fuels, and plastic into bacteria-battling “
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
A team of research scientists at IBM and Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) have drawn upon years of expertise in semiconductor technology and material discovery to crack the code for safely destroying the antibiotic-resistant and sometimes-deadly superbug MRSA.IBM says the researchers have made a nanomedicine breakthrough by converting common plastic materials such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into non-toxic and biocompatible materials designed to specifically target and attack fungal infections.
CLEANTECH -
Already leading the charge when it comes to wiping out its food and plastic waste, The John Lewis Partnership has become the latest company to commit to drastically increasing its use of renewable energy. The UK retail giant recently announced a new partnership with SmartestEnergy to supply over 380 of its Waitrose and John Lewis stores with 100 percent clean power.
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The Plastic Disclosure Project sees an influential need for companies to start disclosing their plastic footprint in order to create a benchmark for reduction by increasing recycling and adding value back into plastic use.
COLLABORATION -
Nestlé has announced a commitment to helping reduce waste and boost responsible disposal in Chile by supporting a new recycling network.The company has backed the “Collective Recycling Project,” which aims to recycle about 1,200 tons of waste per year through the installation of five recycling centers in the capital city of Santiago.The project is a joint collaboration with Walmart Chile, Coca-Cola Chile, PepsiCo and Unilever, with the goal of improving waste management in the country.
COLLABORATION -
LEGO Group recently announced a partnership with WWF centered around improving performance on a range of environmental priorities — including greater focus on collaboration with suppliers to reduce total carbon emissions — and committed to becoming net positive through the use of renewables by 2016.The toy maker joins the likes of Natura, HP, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson and Sprint as the newest member of the WWF’s Climate Savers program.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Each week leading up to our SB London conference, where the winner of the SB London Innovation Open (SBIOL) will be announced on November 18, we will get to know each of our four finalists. This week, meet PulpWorks.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Procter & Gamble has developed a new process to mold plastic that it claims is thinner, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the current industry standard and could save the company $1 billion a year by using less plastic and different raw materials.The company says it plans to use the material for its own products and its patent applications and may also sell it to other marketers from non-competitive package-goods players to automotive giants.
PRESS RELEASE -
BASF and Heritage Plastics, Inc. form strategic partnership to bring ecovio manufacturing to North America
Florham Park, NJ, September 24, 2013 – BASF announced today that it has formed a strategic manufacturing partnership with Heritage Plastics, Inc. to produce ecovio® certified compostable products in North America.
The partnership enables BASF to begin manufacturing ecovio biopolymers outside of Europe to better serve its customers and to further focus on growth in the rapidly developing North American market.
Production of ecovio will begin September 2013 at the Heritage facility in Picayune, Mississippi.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Products from ten companies have been selected as finalists for the Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Product Innovation Challenge, sponsored by the Schmidt Family Foundation and the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Three winners will be selected from this group and will share a cash prize of $250,000.The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, in partnership with Make It Right, launched its first-ever Product Innovation Challenge in November 2012. By June, over 100 products had been entered for consideration.
Monadnock Paper Mills has announced its membership in the Gift Card Network and its educational committee to raise awareness of the benefits of forest materials as alternatives to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and bioplastics for gift card programs.Monadnock, along with fellow manufacturers of sustainable card materials, say they will contribute educational resources and drive discussions around ecological options for card production.The Gift Card Network is a community of gift card industry members that connect, collaborate and contribute through a highly specialized online platform, events and group discussions. Members identify and create media, information, and services around education, challenges, and potential solutions to help the industry move forward.
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JBI, Inc., a clean energy company that recycles waste plastic into liquid fuels, has announced it is partnering with Crayola on its "Colorcycle" program, which converts markers into clean energy.The program will be conducted throughout the United States in participating K-12 schools and encourages students to responsibly dispose of used Crayola markers through an in-school collection process. Markers will be sent to JBI, where they will be used as feedstock to produce diesel and other liquid fuels using JBI's Plastic2Oil® ("P2O") process.
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A pilot project to manufacture commercially viable products from recycled polyethylene fishing nets has been completed successfully in a collaboration between Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM - the Irish Sea Fisheries Board) and Liverpool-based plastics recycler Centriforce Products, according to Centriforce’s website.
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A Canadian coffee company says it has developed a more environmentally friendly alternative to the ever-popular, single-serve K-Cup pods, made a household name in recent years by the ubiquitous Keurig home coffeemakers.
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ESPN has announced that its annual awards show, the ESPYs, will be carbon neutral and achieve zero waste-to-landfill for the fifth and sixth consecutive years, respectively.To achieve carbon neutrality, the sports network says it will apply energy conservation strategies to minimize the use of fossil fuels and prevent pollution. After reducing energy consumption wherever possible through special applications, the remaining greenhouse gas emissions will be mitigated through carbon offsets.Some carbon reduction strategies include:· Solar power to be used on red carpet, press center, golf course.· Multi-passenger vehicles instead of individual limos to reduce vehicle miles driven.· Hybrid and flex fuel vehicles used for other transfers.