Kickstart: Ever troublesome

You recall the Ever Given, a cargo ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021, blocking a major trading route for a week and adding to supply chain problems.

Now its sister ship, the Ever Forward, is stuck in the Chesapeake Bay, although the Coast Guard hopes a combination of dredging and high tides will help it refloat the ship sometime today.

The Ever Forward (and yes, the irony is strong on that name) was headed from Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., when it ran aground on March 13, according to local and national news reports. No word on what type of cargo it may be carrying.

At least this time, the ship isn't blocking any other traffic.

A fee related to plastics sustainability is at the middle of a growing story in South Africa, one that has Plastics SA, the country's plastics industry trade group, distancing itself from a bag maker.

The Sunday Times, South Africa's largest newspaper, ran a story March 27 about a bag maker based in Durban that has been siphoning money from a fee placed on bags that is supposed to support the creation of recycling programs.

The company, which has not been named, has taken nearly 10 million rand (about $670,000) per month that should have gone to the levy, according to local reports.

Plastics SA Executive Director Anton Hanekom said in an email that the group "condemned any kind of criminal behavior in the strongest possible terms."

"It is unfortunate that the article potentially caused reputational damage and unfairly brought the rest of the compliant and law-abiding plastic bag manufacturers into disrepute. It should be made clear that the scam was limited to one supplier who flaunted the rules," Hanekom said.

South Africa has had a levy on bags since 2004 and recently increased the fee. The country also is requiring bags to be produced with recycled content.

"We cannot allow an entire industry to be tarnished by the unscrupulous behavior of a single manufacturer who has no respect for the law," Hanekom said. "[Compliant producers] will give our full cooperation to the authorities to expose and persecute any company found guilty of criminal activities."

A new packaging tax goes into effect in the United Kingdom today, but a recent survey says more than three-quarters of the retail and manufacturing businesses in the country are not fully aware of it or its implications.

The 200 pound ($263) levy will be placed on each metric ton of plastic packaging made or imported into the U.K. if that packaging does not include at least 30 percent recycled content.

But a February survey by YouGov on behalf of the environmental services company Veolia found that only 22 percent of businesses had prepared for the change by ordering packaging with the required recycled content, our sister paper Sustainable Plastics writes. Other firms may be in for a price shock, with the added costs from the levy on top of other rising materials costs globally.