The worldwide pushback against single-use plastics is prompting a large Chinese maker of plastic straws, Soton Daily Necessities, to make a $15 million investment as part of a move toward biodedegradable polymer and paper versions.

Hoping to build stronger links to the government and address concerns about plastic pollution, China's thermoforming industry is forming an ambitious new association aimed at boosting recycling and helping companies upgrade.

German specialty chemicals company Lanxess AG used the recent Chinaplas show to offer more details about its high-performance plastics plant in Changzhou, which is under construction and will be operational by spring 2019.

China's Top Polymer Enterprise Ltd. is at its third NPE, but its first since the company announced plans for a new facility near Atlanta to make thermoplastic elastomers. It's its first factory outside China.

Two Chinese manufacturers of packaging equipment, Tech-Long Packaging Machinery Co. Ltd., and Unique Injection Molding Systems, are teaming up to sell equipment in the Americas and Europe.

At Chinaplas, the mood at the globally oriented event was concern over potential China-U.S. tariffs, and talk of trade wars. Still, most expressed hope that more negotiations would put the worst of it on hold.

As some recyclers continue to grapple with Beijing's tough ban on imported plastic scrap, some outside the country were seeing strength in a new business model: shipping recycled pellets to Chinese factories.

German plastics machinery maker KraussMaffei Group, now part of ChemChina, kicks off the Chinaplas trade fair by noting that last year saw a "big jump" in sales in China.

Chinaplas, already the world's biggest plastics fair by size, moved to a new fairgrounds this year in Shanghai and is 30 percent larger than the last edition in Shanghai, in 2016.

Chinese thermomplastic elastomer compounder Top Polymer Enterprise Ltd. is investing $15 million in a facility near Atlanta, its first outside China.

Taiwan has adopted what will be one of the most far-reaching bans in single-use plastic products, if it's fully implemented. The ban on single-use plastic straws, bags, cups and utensils starts next year and phases in until 2030.

Borouge CEO Wim Roels said at a product launch in Shanghai Oct. 25 that Asia is increasingly a co-equal driver of innovation for the company.

Engel Holding GmbH and two other Austrian firms have brought their apprenticeship program to China. Students who complete the program receive certificates from both Chinese and Austrian education programs, and a chance for a big future at companies in the region.

Global materials supplier Borouge is stepping up activities in western China in response to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative. The company said the initiative, which reportedly includes $150 billion a year in Chinese-funded infrastructure spending in countries along the old Silk Road trading routes, is creating demand in some new or previously less active markets.

Global plastics makers BASF and Dow are getting into China's shared bike industry, announcing partnerships with Chinese companies to make better plastic tires that can handle the intense beating of shared bikes. China's shared bike industry, where consumers use smart phones to unlock bikes, is booming.