Materials & Packaging
The latest developments in materials, feedstocks and processes that are transforming the way many conventional products are made and packaged — and eliminating their negative impacts
The Evidence Is Clear: Consumers Want More Sustainable Packaging Options
With the holiday season upon us, millions of shoppers are in the midst of purchasing wrapping paper and packaging for their gifts this year. What might surprise many is how much consumer commitment towards environmentally sustainable packaging has in... View More
Purdue Researchers Turn Biomass Waste into Valuable Chemical Products
A team of researchers from Purdue University's Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) has developed a new catalytic process that converts biomass waste into chemical products that can be used in fragrances, flavorings o... View More
Study Finds Toxic Chemicals in Many Seasonal Holiday Decor Products
A research study released today finds that top retailers of holiday decor continue to sell seasonal products containing hazardous chemicals. The research found that two-thirds of tested products had one or more hazardous chemicals that have been link... View More
Companies Boosting Profits by Leasing Chemicals
The traditional business model of chemical suppliers selling their products in the largest possible quantities, while profitable, encourages the overuse of chemicals and places a strain on human health and the environment. But another model has emerg... View More
Ecover Partners with Sonoco on Plant-Based Plastic Bottles for New North American Cleaning Products
Ecover, the world's largest maker of non-toxic, eco-friendly cleaning products, has teamed up with packaging producer Sonoco for a series of plant-based plastic bottles for its new North American home care line. ... View More
Google, Facebook Flex Market Muscle in Favor of Healthier Building Materials
Google, Facebook, Genentech and several other companies and organizations comprising a working group of The Building Health Initiative are actively using their collective market influence to create demand for new and innovative products that improve ... View More
Pantry Pest Could Provide Potential Solution to Plastic Problem
While companies around the world continue to innovate to find solutions to our ‘plastic problem’ — from creating biodegradable plant-based plastics to compete with their conventional counterparts to developing depolymerization processes to degr... View More
Dow, Nestlé UK, Unilever Researching New Options for Recycling Flexible Packaging
Nestlé UK and Unilever are among organizations coming together on a new project aiming to improve the recyclability of flexible packaging products, in the hope of pushing the resource industry closer towards a circular economic approach. ... View More
New Tool Measures Corporate Progress Towards Safer Chemicals
A group of corporate and NGO leaders today released a new tool for assessing leadership in corporate chemicals management.The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemi... View More
BASF, Schuster Developing Greaseproof, Recyclable Cardboard for Fast Food Packaging
BASF and recycled cardboard company Schuster have announced they are working on a solution for a combined migration and grease barrier on recycled cardboard.The biopolymer ecovio® PS 1606 is applied to recycled cardboard in an extrusion coating proc... View More
VTT Developing Eco-Friendly Alternative for Polystyrene
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has announced it is developing an affordable and environmentally friendly alternative for polystyrene from PLA bioplastic, which is derived from organic sources.Although expanded polystyrene (EPS) is currently... View More
UK Researchers Cleaning Mine Water with Algae
The GW4 Alliance—a consortium of four leading research universities in the South West of England and Wales—has announced a new project to clean up water from a Cornish tin mine using algae to harvest the precious heavy metals and produce biofuel ... View More
Plum Organics Joins GreenBlue's How2Recycle Label Program
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 — co... View More
UK Scientists Say New Form of Carbon Graphite Could Revolutionize Renewable Energy, EVs
A recently discovered form of carbon graphite has a completely unexpected property that scientists say could revolutionize the development of renewable energy and electric cars.According to results published in the journal Nature, researchers at the ... View More
Novelis 'Creating Value' by Increasing Closed-Loop Recycling, Reducing Carbon Emissions
Novelis’ recently released Fiscal Year 2014 sustainability report shows the aluminum rolling and recycling giant making significant investments and strides to advance the circular economy and increase the sustainability of its business, the aluminu... View More
Carbios Makes New Advances in Reduction of Plastic Waste Through Enzymatic Depolymerization
Carbios, a French green chemistry company specializing in technologies dedicated to the recovery of plastic waste and the production of bio-polymers, recently announced that it has successfully managed to depolymerize 90 percent of polylactic acid (P... View More
SC Johnson Highlights Lower GHGs and Waste, Higher Ingredient Transparency in 2014 Sustainability Report
In its just-released 2014 sustainability report, SC Johnson details progress on its environmental goals — including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent and manufacturing waste by 71 percent since 2000 — as well as si... View More
AkzoNobel and Partners Considering Sugar Beets as Renewable Chemical Feedstock
AkzoNobel has joined forces with SuikerUnie, Rabobank, Deloitte, Investment and Development Agency for the Northern Netherlands (NOM), Groningen Seaports, and the Province of Groningen to investigate the possibility of producing chemicals from beet-d... View More
Survey: Consumers Hate Product Waste More Than Going to the Dentist
This week, LiquiGlide Inc. — creator of a coating for the insides of food containers that helps coax out every last drop — released survey results that clearly illustrate consumers' intense dislike of product waste. ... View More
Confused by All the Tools to Evaluate Chemicals?
While listening to the radio in New York City a while back I heard an ad for a ‘chemical free’ mattress.What is a ‘chemical free’ mattress? There is no such thing. In fact, like all of our consumer products, all humans, animals, and minerals ... View More
