Kickstart: Clearly different rules for schools

Your back-to-school shopping list may include vinyl this year.

Some schools are requiring that all students use clear backpacks for the coming school year. Public schools in Newport News, Va., are requiring students use clear bags and will supply both the backpacks and smaller opaque bags for personal items such as toiletries.

"Clear backpacks will provide another layer of security as part of NNPS' multi-faceted school safety framework," The Virginian Pilot notes in a story about the change for the 27,000-student district. "Clear backpacks make security checks more efficient."

Schools in Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Michigan also are moving to a clear backpack policy. Not all of those schools will pay for the new bags, however.

Meanwhile, Kenneth S. Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, told Yahoo Life that they are "security theater" that will do little to actually stop someone determined to do harm in a school.

Electric vehicles and packaging may get all the buzz on stories about sustainable living, but in the newest issue of Sustainable Plastics, Editor Karen Laird notes that housing and construction consumes more than a third of global carbon emissions.

"The World Green Building Council has estimated that the energy required to construct and operate buildings accounts for around 40 percent of global carbon emissions, with 10 percent from embodied carbon from materials and construction processes," Karen writes in a column for the July/August issue. "Others have calculated that construction and maintenance in cities account for 40 percent of all materials used, 33 percent of energy consumed and 50 percent of waste emissions."

The new issue includes a look at green building practices using plastics and how the plastics industry is creating recycling systems for those same materials.

You can download a free issue here. And catch Karen and PN Editor Don Loepp in the August Sustainable Plastics Live webinar Aug. 1. It's free to PN subscribers.

More than 500 employees assembling seats for the Jeep Grand Wagoneer will lose their jobs at a Forvia plant in Highland Park, Mich., as the company exits what it terms an unprofitable business. Kurt Nagl at our sister paper Crain's Detroit Business writes that the move may be just one example of the complexity of the auto supply industry at this time.

In the past few years, suppliers have seen production numbers struggle due to COVID shutdowns and computer chip shortages. Those suppliers that have made it through successfully now have a little more power in negotiations with automakers, CDB noted late last year.

But at the same time, Jeep owner Stellantis and its CEO have signaled that it is taking a harder line on suppliers as it works to cut costs and compete with China-made electric vehicles.

Rather than being stuck with an unprofitable contract, Forvia was able to negotiate its way out of the business. Competitor Lear Corp. will begin making the Wagoneer seats in the fall.