Kickstart: Talk about a popcorn movie

Barbie is everywhere. Not that she was ever gone, of course, but with the movie Barbie now playing, regular interest in the plastic fashion doll has swelled to new heights, showing up in unexpected places. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, for example, posted a series of social media posts featuring a Barbie styled to resemble her.

But if you want a snack while celebrating the doll and the movie — and plastics — you could opt for some popcorn sold at AMC theaters in a special container copying Barbie's Corvette.

The $34 price includes popcorn, though it'll likely be difficult to get your hands on one unless you're one of the first people at your local AMC to see it.

Stylish though the 16-inch Barbie Corvette popcorn carrier may be, it's not the first car-replica popcorn container for AMC. The theater chain also has a version of Dom's Charger from Fast X. (It holds 130 ounces of popcorn, vs. Barbie's 85 ounces. Did the extra popcorn go to the pink tax?) It has also sold themed buckets for other movies, such as a Rocket Raccoon one for Guardians of the Galaxy and an R2-D2 shaped container linked to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Other theater chains, such as Cinemark and Regal, have planned their own Barbie-themed concession stand items, included a studded drink cup that has already gotten some buzz from fans on social media.

(There's no indication of a similar marketing program for Oppenheimer.)

Mergers and acquisitions may have slowed in 2023, but they certainly haven't stopped. Just check out our new M&A tracker, updated each time we report on a new deal. (Hat tip to our data guru Hollee Keller for developing the tracker.)

In addition to big deals that may or may not happen this year, such as ADNOC's proposals to buy controlling shares in global plastics makers, there are also dozens of acquisitions happening as companies look to add to their presence in new regions or add new customers or new end markets.

And, of course, there's a lot of interest in the topic from entrepreneurs looking for the right time to sell and retire. It probably shouldn't be a surprise that the most popular topic to come up during the Q&A in a Plastics News special webinar on M&A with PN Editor Don Loepp and reporter Frank Esposito on July 20 dealt with the multiples companies could expect to receive — or pay — for their companies.

You can watch an archived version of the webinar here. It's available for free with an email registration.

For anyone who has found it frustrating to remember to bring your bottles to redemption centers for recycling, consider the steps Dutch surfer Merijn Tinga took. After finding a water bottle from the United Kingdom on a Swedish shoreline, Tinga created a windsurf board out of recycled expanded polystyrene, embedded plastic bottles found along waterways, then took five weeks to windsurf from Oslo to London to "return" the bottles.

The project also promoted a plan in the United Kingdom for a bottle bill, being considered to start in 2025.

Tinga worked with World Wildlife Fund and Surfers Against Sewage on the Plastic Soup Surfer adventure.

"To me it is important to show that we should [put in] an extra effort to combat things like plastic pollution, and you can actually change something," he told the BBC.