Kickstart: HBO, recycling and Totes McGoats

Plastics recycling has gotten a lot of attention lately, with radio and TV coverage on the complications of recycling and "wishcycling" showing up in mainstream media.

Now add HBO.

On March 21, the premium cable channel's This Week Tonight with John Oliver took a deep dive into the problems and shortfalls of plastics recycling, with Oliver noting poor collection and reuse rates for materials that can be recycled — such as PET and high density polyethylene — as well as the complications of materials that can't be recycled, no matter how much consumers want to believe something like an umbrella can be recycled.

He doesn't uncover any new ground but does introduce the concept of extended producer responsibility to an audience who may have never heard of EPR before. And it's probably the biggest emphasis on the throwaway culture at HBO since Tony Soprano and his "family" were "in waste management."

You can see the 22-minute segment on YouTube even if you don't have HBO.

Despite problems with the recycling industry, however, Oliver stresses that it is important to stick with it.

"On a personal level I know this can feel demoralizing because it may seem that recycling is pointless, but it's important to know that it's not," he said. "We should absolutely keep recycling paper, cardboard and aluminum, and even recycling plastic — while it might be 90 percent more pointless than you assumed — can still have modest environmental benefits, but we should absolutely do it more mindfully. You should check with your local municipality to see what types of plastic they accept and then only recycle those, otherwise, you could be contaminating usable material."

This year was already shaping up to be one that composite deck maker Trex Co. Inc. was going to find hard to keep up with demand.

Now an electrical fire is going to put a slight damper on its expectations for early 2021, albeit expectations that still could see sales climb by 20 percent vs. 2020.

Catherine Kavanaugh writes that Trex is adjusting its outlook following an electrical fire at its headquarters plant in Winchester, Va. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but Trex says other expansions remain on track.

"Our success with the startup of lines in our new building is providing incremental capacity faster than planned, enabling us to make up the lost production," President and CEO Bryan Fairbanks said. "All of the lines in the new building are expected to be fully operational approximately 30 days ahead of our announced end of second quarter target."

You have some workers that have been putting in long hours, working around the clock, even when the lights are off. So for spring break, how about Disneyland?

No, I'm not talking about the actual Disneyland (which is set to reopen in late April), and I'm not talking about human staff members. Instead, Ford Motor Co. and the University of Michigan have opened what they've termed "Disneyland for robots."

"The 134,000-square-foot complex on the university's north campus in Ann Arbor, [Mich.], features a three-story Fly Zone for drones, high-speed treadmills with obstacles, an outdoor robotics 'playground' and an area called the Mars Yard, which mimics the red planet's surface so researchers can test rover and lander concepts," writes Michael Martinez from our sister paper Automotive News.

Ford and the university said the space will be useful to research ways robots interact with other machines and vehicles and aid workers at manufacturing sites.

"It's a Disneyland for robots," Mario Santillo, Ford's robotics research lead, told Martinez. "All of this is because we're increasingly seeing robots do useful work for society. Our presence here, along with the University of Michigan, allows us to be on the leading edge of this trend."