Kickstart: Cleanups during a time of coronavirus

Most years, organizers would be getting volunteers assigned for a mass scouring of beaches and other areas as part of the annual World Cleanup Day.

Of course this year, large groups are being discouraged in many places (although some regions where COVID-19 outbreaks are low still may have events). So instead, groups like the Ocean Conservancy and the Alliance to End Plastic Waste are encouraging small group or solo efforts, but using technology to lend a hand, with smart phone apps Clean Swell and Litterati to help track what waste is found and where it's found. And they're spreading out the effort over multiple days in September rather than a single date.

The pandemic also is leading to another category of items being collected — personal protective equipment.

Information collected and registered in the database help groups such as the Ocean Conservancy keep tabs on the types of items littering beaches, so they know how to target conservation messages. In response to this year's events, PPE now has its own column in the survey.

As Steve Toloken writes, the 2019 cleanup effort showed that cigarette butts have finally lost their top spot as the item most often found, with flexible food wrappers such as chip bags taking the No. 1 spot.

This week's print issue of Plastics News includes a Viewpoint I wrote taking a look back at some of the very, very, very unexpected business turns of 2020.

This was originally going to be something for Kickstart, but grew too long. So rather than subject you to attempting to read it all in an email here, I'll just link to the full version and include an excerpt here:

It's been the summer of the staycation with spending on decks, pools, floors and mattresses rather than travel.

Auto suppliers, toymakers and custom molders of every stripe developed new skills as medical molders to make personal protective equipment and medical equipment, all while providing income to their employees and supporting their communities.

Somehow in the middle of all this, companies figured out how to do mergers and acquisitions in the middle of lockdowns and travel restrictions, while marketing and sales teams became as adept at Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams as they are at working a trade show floor.

The Strong Museum of Play has announced the nominees for the Toy Hall of Fame for 2020, and plastics products are once again in abundance.

There are 12 nominees this year. Three will join the Hall, housed at the museum in Rochester, N.Y. The winners will be announced Nov. 5.

Among the finalists: Nancy, a Black baby doll that debuted in 1968 to answer the call for ethnically authentic dolls (and developed by a Black-owned business); Lite-Brite, with its black plastic screen and plastic pegs so kids could say they were "making things with light" (sorry/not sorry for the ad jingle earworm); Masters of the Universe toys; multiple games using plastic pieces or dice (Risk, Sorry and Yahtzee) and two different plastic horses.

My Little Pony was first introduced in the 1980s and reintroduced in 2003. During some of their peak years, the toys even outsold Barbie.

The Breyer Horses are closer to resembling reality. The Breyer Molding Co. introduced Breyer Horses in 1951, aiming to have them "realistically capture the spirit and magic of the living creatures."