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:
- Latin America’s largest airline LATAM announced that it has removed 75% of all single-use plastics on board its flights. The initiative is part of the airline’s commitment to eliminate all single-use plastics in its operations by 2023. The measure involves replacing plastic with more sustainable materials such as bamboo cutlery, reusable trays and sustainable paper cups. (Business Traveler)
- The United Arab Emirates has entered the billion-dollar plastics recycling market with the launch of the first global trading platform for recycled materials. The Rebound Plastic Exchange has already attracted traders from around the world, who are signing in to buy recycled materials in a market that is expected to exceed $46 billion by 2025. The UAE is set to host the Cop28 climate conference at Dubai Expo City in 2023, where global leaders and policymakers will come together to discuss solutions to climate change. (The National News)
- Data analytics startup Carbon Minds has partnered with German chemicals giant BASF to provide comprehensive and consistent product carbon footprint (PCF) data for chemicals and plastics in alignment with the BASF PCF methodology. The partnership is set to develop a new, wide-ranging database with more than 80,000 datasets covering over 1000 chemical products in 190 regions. (Chem Europe)
