Kickstart: The many ways of marking Earth Week

Where once there was Earth Day, there's now Earth Week. Not officially, mind you, but a lot of sustainability messaging from organizations and companies are stressing the approach across multiple days.

What does this mean for the plastics industry? Expect a lot more statements to come out the next few days about reducing the use of plastics or at least recycling.

The University of Southern California, for instance, is marking the week by announcing that future contracts with vendors will "need to be renegotiated to ensure new materials comply with the university's sustainability protocols."

That means moving from plastic to glass, aluminum and cardboard packaging.

"We are only starting to get a handle on how many plastic bottles end up in the garbage across our campuses," said USC Chief Sustainability Officer Mick Dalrymple. "USC is highly decentralized, making it difficult to establish universitywide systems and measurements, but the moves we're working on right now to eliminate single-use plastic bottles cover a substantial portion of the volume.

"When combined with the schools and other administrative departments eliminating their purchases, I expect we'll soon see about 90 percent of the plastic bottles disappear from USC," he said.

The Los Angeles-based university has more than 20,000 undergraduate students.

On the other side of the country, Palm Beach Atlantic University, a private college in West Palm Beach, Fla., is putting an emphasis on what individuals can do with a series of daily challenges, starting with plastics and recycling.

"Keep track of how many single-use plastics you use today. Then think about how much plastic that means you use every year. Think about the best ways to dispose of your plastics responsibly," the college notes. "If plastic is not able to be recycled, make sure you throw it away in a trash can where it will not get blown away and end up in the ocean."

On April 20, the college takes on water use, followed by days devoted to a waterway restoration project, followed by a daylong event asking people to take small steps such as turning off lights when not in use and carpooling.

And for another take on corporate sustainability, Japanese materials company Toray Industries Inc. announced it has reached a deal with the owner of its headquarters building in Tokyo to switch to green energy sources.

"Toray's head office will thus effectively use 100 percent renewable energy from April 2022," the company announced.

That should mean an annual greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 1,500 tons of CO2.

The agreement with property owner Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd. will focus on supplying wind energy for Toray's needs.