Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
Every week, we publish a roundup of the top developments in plastics and sustainability – from regulatory changes to company news.
This week’s highlights:
- Abu Dhabi, the capital of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, plans to ban single-use plastic bags from June of this year following neighboring Dubai’s pledge to phase them out in two years. The UAE will host the UN Climate Change Conference next year. It aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. (Bloomberg)
- A new UN report outlines how moves to address climate change may affect key sectors. Scientists convened by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said CO2 emissions must be halved by 2030 from 2019 to keep warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and that drops in the price of renewable energy could help make that happen. The IPCC outlined how supply chains could be rewired to switch high-temperature industrial processes from fossil fuels to zero-carbon electricity or hydrogen. Industrial emissions have risen faster than those of other sectors this century amid rising consumption of steel, cement and plastic, according to the IPCC. (Wall Street Journal)
- Finalists in the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize are working to develop an alternative to thin-film plastic polybags for a chance to win $1.2 million. An estimated 180 billion thin-film plastic polybags are used by the fashion industry every year and are difficult to recycle. The finalists have entered a testing phase sponsored by Nike to ensure their materials are einvironmentally friendly and meet industry performance standards. (Forbes)
