Welcome to the Plastics Weekly, NEO’s regular news monitoring of the plastics industry.
This week’s highlights:
- Starbucks has started rolling out single-use cups made with up to 20% less plastic. The company said the improved cold cup will keep 13.5 million pounds of plastic from landfills annually at no additional cost. This marks the latest step in Starbucks’ plan to “give more than it takes,” which includes cutting the company’s carbon, water and waste footprint in half and updating all customer packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030. (Recycling Today)
- Sustainable packaging firms in Hong Kong have seen a boost to their business as more food and drink companies opt for environmentally-friendly alternatives. This comes after authorities in Hong Kong introduced a throwaway plastics ban on April 22 , which covers utensils such as cutlery and straws offered by takeaway outlets. (South China Morning Post)
- Researchers have develped a new plastic recycling method that captures carbon. The ustainable, closed-loop process is aimed at producing and recycling polycarbonate plastic while also capturing carbon, which helps to address the two challenges simultaneously. The new recycling method, which fundamentally differs from mechanical recycling, involves converting polycarbonate into its original building blocks in a process known as depolymerization. (Advanced Science News)