Kickstart: Dogs are welcome to get into this trash

Most dogs I've run across have an affinity for garbage — or at least they want to get into anything they're not supposed to, like a trash can. So it somehow seems appropriate that they can now sleep in garbage. Or at least in a dog house made from recycled trash.

UBQ, an Israel-based company that converts mixed trash bound for landfills into thermoplastic, is supplying its material (also called UBQ) to Plásticos Rimax, a Colombian molder of pet products.

"Loving animals goes hand in hand with caring for the planet," Elsa Coello Costa, communication and digital marketing manager at Rimax, said in a news release. "With our initial launch in Colombia, we anticipate a methodical expansion throughout Latin America."

Rimax is the first company to introduce UBQ in pet products, our sister paper Sustainable Plastics notes.

I've gone on the record a couple of times questioning the need for "smart" glasses that allow you to interact with social media, snap photos and video through the Ray-Bans on your face. Does anyone need to be so connected?

I'm here to say, though, that I have seen a good case for smart glasses that integrate electronics into the plastic frames — as accessibility aids for people who need a little help with hearing or vision.

A handful of companies, including Xander and Xrai, showed glasses at CES in Las Vegas earlier this month that included software that provides real-time captions on the lens, allowing people with hearing disabilities to better follow conversations.

Consultants with IDTechEx in the United Kingdom note that smart glasses remain too clumsy and expensive to break into the mainstream so far, but they added in a news release that there seems to be a good case study for using them as an aid.

"CES 2023 made it clear that the hearing and visually impaired are set to become early adopters," IDTechEx noted. "With the [World Health Organization] estimating that over 3 billion people worldwide are living with hearing and visual impairments, the commercial potential of this application is difficult to ignore."

Whirlpool Corp. is spinning off its major domestic appliance operations in Europe in a newly formed entity that will be majority owned by Turkey-based Arcelik AS. The change covers a business worth more than $6 billion. The deal announced Jan. 17 follows a 2022 sale of Whirlpool's business in Russia to Arcelik.

The move "significantly accelerates the portfolio transition" for Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool. The company is a big buyer of plastics for refrigerators, dishwashers and other big appliances.

Whirlpool will retain a 25 percent interest in the new entity and it will continue its ownership of small kitchen appliances sold under the Kitchen Aid brand.

The move will free up cash — an estimated $750 million, the company said — providing "significant value creation," Whirlpool said.

In October, Whirlpool cut its earnings and sales forecast as consumers put off appliance purchases due to inflation and recession worries. At that time it also said it was taking "aggressive steps" to manage costs.