Kickstart: Sit, stay, recycle. Good boy

Calgary-based Nova Chemicals recently announced a couple of moves to improve its work in sustainability. One is a deal with Revolution Co. to sell its recycled low density polyethylene and linear low density PE.

In the other, as Frank Esposito writes, Nova has become the technical sponsor of Toward Circularity, an expansion of a pet food packaging recycling program from the Pet Sustainability Coalition.

Currently only about 1 percent of pet food packaging is recycled, according to the coalition, and it needs help to improve those numbers. An estimated 300 million pounds of plastic pet food bags are made in the U.S. each year, but most of those bags are made of multiple types of plastic, making them hard to recycle.

"Long term, we aim to help the pet food industry move to recyclable, monomaterial packaging, but it is imperative that we help increase recycling for the materials that are being produced today," said PSC Sustainability Director Melissa Bauer.

One of the early companies affected by the coronavirus pandemic was German auto supplier Webasto AG, which was forced to shut down its headquarters in late January due to a case at the site.

While the company was credited for its quick reaction in stopping the spread, there's now a ripple effect from Europe to the U.S. from the supplier of plastic, metal and glass sunroof systems.

The shutdown in Europe caused a delay to tooling production for parts needed for a removable roof for Ford Motor Co.'s new Bronco SUV. That's meant the U.S. operations have not been able to deliver final parts on its planned schedule.

That means that the Bronco will go into production a little later than expected — in the summer of 2021 — and potential buyers will start placing orders in January, rather than this week as first planned.

But Joe McCabe, CEO of AutoForecast Solutions, told Automotive News that the Bronco delay ultimately won't have a major impact.

"Ford can still build the vehicles," he said. "Get them ready, and as soon as the tops roll in, they can start strapping them on. That's the beauty of that vehicle."

Joe Cahill from our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business has an interesting column out on how traditional food companies have improved their bottom line thanks to consumers buying "comfort foods."

"After years of struggling to generate growth, companies like Kraft Heinz, Mondelez and ConAgra are scrambling to churn out enough Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Oreo cookies and Birdseye frozen vegetables to meet demand," he writes.

But he goes on to note that the companies that will come out of the pandemic in the best shape are midsized firms that can quickly pivot when consumers' taste buds change.

Reading that makes me think of the packaging suppliers that have had to respond in kind to keep up with demand on store shelves and the quick changes they're implementing to keep up. That's worth that will pay off, Cahill thinks.

"Changing consumption patterns amid the pandemic have sparked a wave of innovation and entrepreneurship in packaged food," Cahill writes. "Nimble startups, not plodding behemoths, are leading the industry forward with new products tailored to the times."