Pellets and Politics

California's state government on June 30 adopted its long-debated plastics recycling and pollution law. It has the potential to reshape recycling and use of plastics packaging beyond the state's borders.

Tougher plastics pollution policies from governments globally could mean significantly less growth in plastics use, a new OECD report finds.

The website PolitiFact is weighing in on claims in the plastics-climate change debate, declaring public statements from the plastics industry "half true."

The sudden ouster of the Plastics Industry Association's CEO puts the group in a place it didn't want to be. Steve Toloken has some ideas on the path ahead.

Could international uncertainty — including the war in Ukraine, new COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the Canadian border truck blockade — have a silver lining for smaller U.S. plastics firms?

It will take a few years to be felt, but the global plastics treaty negotiations launched a few days ago at the United Nations will have a big impact. Here are some of the ways it could.

The pact has an ambitious — some say overly ambitious — plan to have 50 percent of plastic packaging recycled or composted and have 30 percent recycled content by 2025. In a way, the list is low-hanging fruit since the companies in the pact, such as Coca-Cola, Nestle, Walmart and Target, have a lot more control over their material choices than they do over low U.S. recycling rates.

A food waste obsession and edible packaging; UN looks at the ‘good, bad and ugly' of agricultural plastics; and

If EPR is not something you follow closely, when ACC said in July it favored the idea of EPR to fund recycling, it was a big step. EPR programs basically put the packaging and consumer goods industry on the hook for paying a lot more of the costs of recycling, instead of mainly taxpayers. Patty Moore Bongiovanni's comment was along the lines of, "What took you so long?"