Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
Every Monday, we publish a roundup of the top developments in plastics and sustainability – from regulatory changes to company news.
This week’s highlights:
- United Nations member states are set to meet this month in Nairobi to draft a global plastics treaty that could see countries reduce the amount of single-use plastics they produce and use. That’s bad news for big oil and chemical companies as the industry, is projected to double plastic output within two decades. Plastic industry groups representing firms like ExxonMobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Dow Inc are working behind the scenes to persuade conference participants to reject any deal that would limit plastic manufacturing, insiders say. The effort is reportedly being led by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a powerful group of U.S.-based oil and chemical firms. (Reuters)
- France-based chemical company TotalEnergies has partnered with U.S.-based Honeywell International Inc. that will see Honeywell supply TotalEnergies with feedstock derived from chemically recycled plastic waste. The “recycled polymer feedstock” will be produced at a new chemical recycling plant that Honeywell is building in Spain and will deploy Honeywell’s chemical recycling UpCycle process technology to convert waste into recycled polymer feedstock, or RPF. Production is estimated to begin in 2023, with the RPF to be used to manufacture circular polymers in TotalEnergies’ European-based production units. (Plastics News)
- The U.S.-based Association of Plastic Recyclers is launching a new global design catalog to help companies navigate various plastics recyclability guidelines around the world. The new Global Design Catalogue creates what the trade group calls “comprehensive resource to access the most current plastic packaging recyclability guidelines for countries and regions around the world.” APR’s catalogue contains information from the European Union, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and the United Kingdom, with additional countries to be added in the future. (Plastics News)
