Kickstart: Use, wash, repeat

While single-use plastics and takeout containers have been demonized by environmental groups, a New York business has formed to make that packaging more sustainable by simply setting up a system to wash and reuse it.

Our sister paper Crain's New York Business has a story on Re:Dish, a startup that has a network of cafeterias, schools and businesses that use polypropylene packaging molded in Oregon. Re:Dish customers use the PP containers and have a spot to collect them when eaters are finished. Re:Dish has a commercial dishwashing facility in Brooklyn that cleans the containers that are then returned to be used again.

As business models go, a "wash and reuse" concept seems fairly straightforward, but of course many business and school cafeterias stripped out their own in-house dishwashing operations previously, just as they eliminated a lot of the actual kitchen staff in favor of food that simply has to be heated up. That creates an opening for a company like Re:Dish.

In negotiations for mergers and acquisitions, everyone involved knows something could go wrong and (hopefully) they plan for it.

But the pending deal by private investment group Apollo to buy auto supplier Tenneco Inc. may be setting a whole new precedent for problems.

Tenneco, a Lake Forest, Ill.-based firm whose portfolio includes a range of plastics and rubber parts, first announced a deal to sell to Apollo on Feb. 23 for $20 per share — double the share price on Feb. 22. Then Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Tenneco has manufacturing in Russia, and the country made up $100 million to its $15.4 billion in annual revenue, Reuters reported at the time. The two sides created a "carve out" to separate business in Russia and Ukraine so they could move ahead.

Tenneco announced Oct. 28 it had cleared all regulatory hurdles and hopes to complete the sale soon. As Steve Daniels of our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business writes, rising interest rates have only added more pressure.

"For Tenneco shareholders, timing is everything. With banks' appetite for [leveraged buyout] debt essentially gone because of spiking interest rates, there's no way the company could find a buyer today willing to pay what Apollo is," he writes.

Lego A/S is expanding its line of inclusive characters, set to roll out a "Lego Friends" update in January that includes characters that will help kids find a toy that represents them.

"The new sets and series will feature characters with limb difference, Downs Syndrome, anxiety, vitiligo and a dog with a wheelchair," the Danish toymaker said in an Oct. 27 news release.

Lego said its Play Well Study 2022 showed an interest in showing a wider range of representative toys, with 97 percent of parents saying they "believe it is important to discuss the unique individualities between us all, especially mental health (91 percent), physical disabilities (82 percent), mental disabilities (81 percent) and ethnicity (75 percent)."

Lego began adding variety to its figurines in 2016 with the introduction of a character who uses a wheelchair.