Canada's government wants to declare plastic "toxic" under environmental laws, but industry warns it could scare off investment, amid debate on how to address 12 percent packaging recycling rate.

A former lawyer for Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics alleges the company wrongfully fired him for urging more thorough investigations of pollution around its fluoropolymer processing plants. The company calls the complaint baseless.

A $500 million plastics-industry-supported recycling bill is coming back in the new session of Congress. Some other industry groups are seeking changes to the proposal.

An unusual recycling and litter abatement plan in Texas to put a 1-cent fee on bags, takeout cups and PET bottles is getting support from the PET packaging sector, which has been backing new legislation to try to raise recycling rates.

A South Texas plastics recycling company is adding compounding and pelletizing capacity, as it reports rising demand for its recycled materials.

Some plastics industry groups and companies are backing a global plastics pollution treaty, but lines are forming over how prescriptive any agreement should be.

A cross-border U.S.-Canada business group said March 31 it has formed a coalition to develop a plastics pollution plan for the Great Lakes region.

Plastics and manufacturing industry groups said they found positives among $300 billion in manufacturing and business spending in President Joe Biden's infrastructure plan. But they want recycling added in the mix.

The U.S. Plastics Pact is just getting underway, but the head of the organization told an industry conference that to meet its ambitious goals, its member companies will need to make major changes in how they use plastic packaging.

The federal government said March 25 it has brought a whistleblower lawsuit against Zoltek Corp., alleging it wrongfully fired an employee for reporting safety concerns.

The reintroduction of far-reaching Democratic plastics legislation in Congress got an amped up pushback from the industry. But political changes in Washington and shifts in industry positions have changed the field.

The head of Dow, the American Chemistry Council and other senior executives held an unusual online news conference March 23 to urge Washington not to pass legislation they said would hinder investment in chemical recycling.

A March 18 plastics hearing in Congress covered a lot of ground, including extended producer responsibility proposals that have shown up in recent legislation.