Author: Jake Evans

Some of the most easily recycled household plastic waste — including milk cartons, vegetable oil containers and soft drink bottles — will be sent overseas for processing after a decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to "temporarily" exempt them from a nationwide plastic export ban. Oatley Resources Australia has been granted a one-year exemption to export "clean and sorted polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste plastic" to be processed and recycled into new products overseas, temporarily undoing a ban agreed to by all governments in 2020.

Author: James Bruggers

Research out of Scotland suggests that the chopping, shredding and washing of plastic in recycling facilities may turn as much as six to 13 percent of incoming waste into microplastics—tiny, toxic particles that are an emerging and ubiquitous environmental health concern for the planet and people. A team of four researchers measured and analyzed microplastics in wastewater before and after filters were installed at an anonymous recycling plant in the United Kingdom. The study, one of the first of its kind, was published in the May issue of in the peer-reviewed Journal of Hazardous Material Advances.

Author: Sandra Laville

As a boy John Chweya was one of many children who scrambled over the mountain of stinking waste at Kachok dump, using a magnet that he dangled over the rubbish to pull out metal scraps and earn a living. Over the years since, global companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé have increased plastic production by millions of metric tonnes, and plastic bottles have replaced metal as the source of income for those who pick through the garbage in Kisumu, the third-largest city in Kenya.

Author: Recycling Magazine

In a new study, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) assesses the consequences of different approaches to allocating recycled content in plastic. In a new study, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) assesses the consequences of different approaches to allocating recycled content in plastic.

Author: Andrew Paul

An unsettling report released barely a year ago painted a grim picture of the plastics industry—only about 5 percent of the 46 million annual tons of plastic waste in the US makes it to recycling facilities. The number is even more depressing after realizing that is roughly half of experts’ previous estimates. But if all that wasn’t enough, new information throws a heaping handful of salt on the wound: of the plastic that does make it to recycling, a lot of it is still released into the world as potentially toxic microplastics.

Author: Chinedum Uwaegbulam

The Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm Conventions commenced in Geneva, Switzerland to collectively advance the sound management of chemicals and waste. Under the Basel Convention (BC), the oldest of the three conventions, there are various efforts to help it reflect contemporary waste streams and management. Debates on Annex IV (disposal operations) are part of this effort. Countries debated how to handle waste that is exported for repair or refurbishment. For some, including this category, could close a loophole that allows unscrupulous dealers to bypass the Convention by claiming waste as reusable or repairable. Looming in the background is e-waste. If a computer is repairable when it is exported, but becomes waste soon after, it will be up to the importing country to dispose of it.

Author: Matt Simon

THE PLASTICS INDUSTRY has long hyped recycling, even though it is well aware that it’s been a failure. Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent. Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds up drifting around the environment.  Now, an alarming new study has found that even when plastic makes it to a recycling center, it can still end up splintering into smaller bits that contaminate the air and water. This pilot study focused on a single new facility where plastics are sorted, shredded, and melted down into pellets. Along the way, the plastic is washed several times, sloughing off microplastic particles—fragments smaller than 5 millimeters—into the plant’s wastewater. 

Authors: Wojciech Cieśla and Paulo Pena

In the town of Wschowa, not far from the German border, an entrepreneur’s sand mining business caught the attention of authorities after locals complained of rancid smells coming from the fields. Court documents show that Zbigniew T. made his fortune not from selling sand but by burying thousands of tonnes of illegal waste from Germany and western Poland. His profits ran into millions of (untaxed) zlotys. The sand and gravel holes operated by his firm were several hundred metres deep, and prosecutors allege they were filled with almost half a million cubic metres of waste – enough to fill around 5000 large trucks.

Author: Elizabeth Claire Alberts

New research suggests that plastic recycling facilities could be releasing wastewater packed with billions of tiny plastic particles, contributing to the pollution of waterways and endangering human health. A team of international scientists sampled water inside a new recycling facility at an undisclosed location in the U.K. They suggest that the facility could be releasing up to 75 billion microplastics — tiny plastic pieces less than 5 millimeters, or 3/16 of an inch, in length — per cubic meter of wastewater per year. That’s about 6% of the plastic that entered the facility to be recycled. However, the researchers only considered microplastics as small as 1.6 microns (μm), which means these numbers are likely to be an underestimate, they say.

Authors: Simon Jessop and Helen Reid

LONDON, May 4 (Reuters) - Investors including Pictet and Amundi managing $10 trillion in assets, signed a statement urging consumer goods and grocery companies to do more to cut their use of plastic packaging amid rising costs and risks. The group of 185 investors, coordinated by the Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO), said plastics imposed an estimated $350 billion a year in costs on society from emissions, pollution and collection costs.

Authors: Attracta Mooney and Chris Flood

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A coalition of investors that oversee $10tn in assets has called on companies including Amazon, PepsiCo and McDonald’s to drastically reduce their reliance on plastics, saying a failure to do so exposes them to financial risks. The 183-strong group has written to 30 of the world’s biggest grocery, retail and consumer goods companies to warn that continued production of plastics poses risks to public health, biodiversity, climate change and human rights.

Author: Marissa Heffernan

The Federal Trade Commission requested comments on its revisions to the Green Guides and got 850 responses, with many calling for a crackdown on deceptive claims and better definitions of key terms.  The decade-old Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, otherwise known as the Green Guides, cover recycling, compostability, ozone impacts, carbon offsets, the use of healthy ingredients, claims about general environmental benefits, manufacturing with renewable energy, and more. When it comes to recycling, they discuss when and how marketers should make claims about recyclability and recycled content. 

Author: Greenpeace

Today, six national environmental and health groups submitted 54 pages of detailed recommendations and extensive evidence in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) solicitation of public comment on the Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (known as the “Green Guides”). The comprehensive comments, submitted by The Last Beach Cleanup, Just Zero, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Beyond Plastics, Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace USA, focus on recyclability and recycled content labels and claims on plastic products and packaging. The commenting organizations are extremely concerned about the growing environmental and human health impacts associated with plastic production, waste, and pollution. Despite a dismal 5%-6% U.S. plastic recycling rate and rising public backlash about the prevalence of unrecyclable and single-use plastic products, companies continue to use plastic when designing and packaging their products.

Author: Sarah Liversidge

Woolworths has begun to phase out its 15c shopping bags from stores across three states in a bid to reduce plastic waste. Reusable plastic bag stock in stores in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania will start being run down from Monday. The supermarket giant has already scrapped the bags in ACT, NT, SA, WA and Queensland, but by June no stores will be selling them in Australia.