Kickstart: Clean Sweep takes to the rails

Railroad company Norfolk Southern Corp. is the latest company to join Operation Clean Sweep, pledging to "work to achieve" zero pellet loss during shipping of resin.

While the bulk of the Clean Sweep members are resin producers, a number of shipping and logistics companies also have joned the effort. Norfolk Southern, based in Norfolk, Va., announced it is the most recent Class 1 railroad to join the program led by the American Chemistry Council and Plastics Industry Association.

"As part of the pledge, Norfolk Southern will work to achieve zero loss of plastic resin into the environment," Chief Marketing Officer Alan Shaw said in an Aug. 11 news release. "We are developing an extensive education campaign to raise awareness among our employees and we will increase our scrutiny to make sure the hopper cars we transport are properly secured and sealed."

Pellet spillage at shipping locations has been targeted by environmental groups. In 2019, the Southern Environmental Law Center threatened to sue distributor Frontier Logistics LP over pellet pollution in Charleston, S.C., blamed on spillages at a logistics site.

Remember when plastic straws were the center of attention? When fast-food restaurants made headlines by announcing plans to phase them out? Would you believe that was just five months ago?

But the controversy over plastic straws may be getting another bump thanks to the U.S. presidential election.

A day after Democrat Joe Biden announced that Sen. Kamala Harris would be his running mate, President Donald Trump's re-election Twitter account Trump War Room was out with an ad targeting Harris for an earlier statement that "I think we should" ban plastic straws. (And a clip of Biden saying "I don't think we should be using plastic straws anymore.")

In the tweet, the Trump campaign referred to plastic straws as "the only straws that work."

So ... the next few months should be fun.

Not everyone can afford carbon fiber transportation. But if you don't need to rely on something the size of a car, or a motorcycle or even a bicycle, perhaps something the size of a laptop would do?

Teijin Ltd. is supplying its Tenax thermoplastic carbon fiber, Tenax thermoplastic woven fabric and polycarbonate alloy Panlite to the Walkcar, a rechargeable four-wheel transportation system weighing less than 7 pounds and able to travel up to about 4 miles at nearly 10 mph.

There are no handles, just the flat surface. Its developers say its low profile makes it easy to step off in any direction.

The video from Tokyo-based developers Cocoa Motors sure looks fun. But speaking for those of us with klutz tendencies, I think I'll pass.