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:
- As companies and consumers seek to balance the environmental harm of plastics with their everyday utility, a new report from McKinsey & Co. finds that plastics may not be so bad after all. In 13 out of 14 applications analyzed by the consulting firm, plastics had a lower greenhouse gas impact than the next-best nonplastic alternative for that product in the U.S. in 2020. The findings call into question the global push for less plastic. (Politico)
- Dow Chemical Company has become the first company to achieve the highest certification for its used recycle-rich resins Revoloop – the first polyethylene (PE) compounds to be certified for plastics recycling traceability and recycled content. Granted by the Spanish Association for Standardization and Certification (AENOR), the certification conforms to the assessment parameters of European standards and extends to all the three grades offered by Dow in Europe. (Polymer Update)
- Elsewhere, Dow has partnered with Valoregen, a carbon-neutral plastic recycler, to build a hybrid site for mechanical and advanced recycling in France. According to the companies, the site will have the capacity to process up to 70 kilotonnes of plastic waste per year at what is set to be the largest hybrid recycling site in France. Dow will reportedly be the main recipient of post-consumer resins from the site, which the company will use to develop new plastic products marketed under its Revoloop product range. (Packaging Europe)