Kickstart: 'No, please don't do that'

If there's one company that can make a major impact in consumer packaging, it's Walmart Co. The Arkansas-based retail giant says its serious about putting better, more sustainable packaging on its shelves.

Walmart has set a goal of zero plastic packaging waste, with 20 percent recycled content in plastic packaging for its private label items, and it is making sure its suppliers know it. "If we can do it, so can you," the company says.

It also produced its own recycling playbook to guide company decisions on the types of packaging available, and broke down the jargon on recyclable vs. bio-based vs. biodegradeable vs. compostable. So that if a supplier offers to place degradeable additives in compostable lettuce flexible packaging, they know to say: "No. Please don't do that" since degradability isn't the same thing as compostability.

Walmart even brought in Steve Alexander from the Association of Plastic Recyclers as part of its education program.

If you make packaging for consumer products, and those products are sold through Walmart, you'll definitely want to make sure you're in line with that playbook.

Of course if you're still confused about recycling rules, you could ask a raccoon.

The Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) recently rolled out an ad campaign featuring the Recycling Raccoons, a group of critters who will badger (no actual badgers involved) you on cleaning up your recycling game.

Clean out your cans, they'll tell you. No plastic bags in your curbside collection bin, they remind you. And don't even think of tossing that greasy pizza box in your recycling bin. "Grease in the fibers ruins the [recycling] process," Carlos Cardboard tells us.

Yes, they have names. In addition to Carlos they're: Gladys Glass, Paper MacKay, Precious Metale, Nyla P. Lastic and Frank.

A few years ago, Rick Thibault was washing his motor home with a 5-gallon bucket, lugging or shoving the bucket from one spot to the next when he thought: There has got to be a better way to do this.

Sounds like the start of a lot of products right? For Thibault, as reporter Catherine Kavanaugh writes, the answer was the PailPal Tradesman Cart, which has room for a bucket, tools and even a seat.

Butler, Ind.-based DeKalb Molded Plastics Co. is ramping to produce what has become a line of 10 products.