Kickstart: Toys, recycling and Russia

Playmobil maker Horst Brandstätter Group says sales of its toys took a hit in the 2021 financial year, but that isn't slowing what it terms its "ambitious sustainability goals."

Brandstätter Group, which also molds Lechuza-brand garden planters, has set a target to be climate neutral by 2027, with more than $50 million to be invested to help combat climate change. The Zirndorf, Germany-based company says it will have a completely closed loop for its materials by 2030.

"We do not only want to provide children with sustainably manufactured products, but also teach them from an early age how important it is to protect our planet," CEO Steffen Höpfner said in a news release.

Its new Wiltopia-brand toys, set to launch in July with a focus on wild animals from every continent, will be made from an average of 80 percent sustainable material, including post-consumer recycled plastics — with material recovered from scrapped refrigerators — and bio-based plastics.

The focus comes as Brandstätter notes its sales are "down slightly," with expected lower sales in the future due to the impact of the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the company said it would stop supplying both the Playmobil and Lechuza brands to customers in Russia, where it had about $10.5 million in annual sales.

Brandstätter hasn't been alone in both exiting business in Russia and taking a fiscal hit from that decision.

Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool Corp. said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it is leaving Russia by selling its subsidiary Whirlpool EMEA SpA to Turkish appliance company Arcelik A.S.

Arcelik will pay for the Whirlpool operations — a manufacturing site in Lipetsk producing refrigerators and sales offices in Moscow and other Commonwealth of Independent States countries closely allied with Russia — but payments will be deferred over a 10-year period.

The assets are valued at more than $230 million and Whirlpool said it will record a loss of between $300 million and $400 million in the 2022 fiscal year.

PN's Sarah Kominek takes on the very complex issue of sustainability in the medical plastics industry in her latest Fake Plastic Trees blog.

Obviously, some medical products, such as catheters, needles and other items that go inside the body, are designed from the start for a single use, then destroyed.

But packaging and some instrument housings could go into a recycling program. The World Health Organization says that 85 percent of waste generated by health care activities is classified as nonhazardous. However, a medical system already stressed to the breaking point by the COVID-19 pandemic simply lacks the time or personnel to sort material for recycling.

"A lot of nonhazardous material ends up in hazardous waste streams because [health care workers] have to separate out those toxic and infectious products, things that were contaminated with blood," Gregory Keoleian, director of the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems, told Sarah. "[That takes] time and space … and if the [recycling] markets aren't that strong, that's going to be difficult."