Author: Lisa Korycki

More than 5000 tonnes of soft plastics have been moved to safe storage under Clean-up Notices issued by New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to Coles and Woolworths following the REDcycle collapse. The notices required the supermarkets to address the potential fire and pollution risk posed by 15 soft plastic stockpiles accumulated during the REDcycle soft plastics collection program. Steve Beaman, EPA Executive Director, said having the retailers move the stockpiles to a safe and lawful location has been a priority.

Author: Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Jul 24 2023 (IPS) - Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made progress towards partial regulations to reduce plastic pollution, but the problem is serious and environmental activists are calling for regulations in the entire chain of production, consumption and disposal of plastic waste. The release of plastic waste into the environment “is the tip of the iceberg of a problem that begins much earlier, from the exploitation of hydrocarbons, to the transport and transformation of these precursors of an endless number of products,” Andrés del Castillo, a Colombian expert based in Switzerland, told IPS.

Author: Margaret Paul

Australia's major supermarkets have started sending samples of soft plastics overseas to be recycled, as they deal with the legacy of thousands of tonnes of stockpiled plastics from the collapsed REDcycle scheme. Coles and Woolworths took responsibility for the stockpiles of plastics in February, after REDcycle went into liquidation, owing creditors about $5 million, including fees for storing massive stockpiles in warehouses across several Australian states. Victoria's environmental watchdog charged REDcycle in December, alleging the company secretly stockpiled 3,000 tonnes of soft plastics across nine sites.

Author: Chrissy Sexton

Vacationers turned citizen scientists have assisted a team of researchers in uncovering the threat of microplastics on the pristine beaches of the Arctic.  As the world grapples with the increasing scale of plastic production, tiny fragments of these synthetic materials, known as microplastics, have become ubiquitous, sparking fears of accumulation and consequent ecosystem damage in the Arctic due to ocean currents. Still yet, our understanding of the extent and nature of this potential Arctic plastic pollution remains sketchy.

Author: Zahra Ahmad, Earthjustice

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today affirmed its May 2022 decision to allow the ongoing use of phthalates, a class of toxic chemicals, in food packaging and food production equipment. Health and environmental advocates had asked FDA to reconsider that decision based on mounting scientific evidence that phthalates in food cause serious health harm.

Author: Rédaction Africanews

Kenya is being swamped with waste clothing from other continents, a report by the Changing Markets Foundation claims. The report, based on findings by the Kenyan environmentalist groups Wildlight and Clean Up Kenya, says that "an overwhelming volume of used-clothing shipped to Kenya is waste synthetic clothing".  While the exporting of plastic waste is restricted under the Basel Convention, a voluntary agreement called the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, a third of the old clothes shipped to Kenya is reported to contain plastic. 

Author: Jared Paben

A company that specializes in collecting PET and other plastics at risk of entering the ocean continues to expand its collection infrastructure in Southeast Asia with support from the U.S. government. Prevented Ocean Plastic Southeast Asia (POPSEA) in June opened an aggregation center in the fast-growing Indonesian city of Semarang. The facility, which has a capacity of about 500 metric tons per month and directly employs 40 people, was funded through a blended public-private finance model that included a grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

Author: Deanne Toto

Plastic scrap prices continued their descent in July as supply outpaced demand for polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polypropylene (PP) recovered at material recovery facilities (MRFs) in the U.S.  A reprocessor based in the Southeast says natural HDPE bales have been selling in the low 30-cents-per-pound range as of mid-July, which represents a decline of 50 cents per pound over a five-week period. Mixed-color HDPE bales were selling for 8 cents per pound, down from nearly 20 cents per pound just a few weeks ago.

Author: RecyclingMarkets.net Staff

PET and HDPE prices have taken a sudden crash this month, dropping by double-digit percentages. Luckily for MRFs, most everything else in the curbside mix is holding steady.  The national average price of post-consumer PET beverage bottles and jars is down 44% this month. Bales of PET are now averaging 7.06 cents per pound, compared with 12.63 cents per pound this time last month.

Author: Jared Paben

Plastic resin giant NOVA Chemicals will build a large PE film recycling facility in Indiana. The facility will be operated by film specialist Novolex. By 2026, Calgary, Alberta-headquartered NOVA plans to produce 113 million pounds per year of recycled polyethylene pellets at the plant in Connersville, Ind., according to a press release issued July 18. Owned by NOVA, the plant will be operated by Novolex, a film and bag producer that runs its own film recycling operations in the Midwest.

Author: Aleksandra Krzysztoszek

Warsaw will take Berlin to the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg for allegedly failing to remove 35 tonnes of waste illegally transported to Poland by German companies and stored at seven sites in the country, Climate and Environment Minister Anna Moskwa announced on Tuesday. At a press conference in May, the Polish government expressed its will to sue Germany over waste. “I am convinced that as soon as this week, the complaint will be filed to the European Union Court of Justice,” Moskwa said on Tuesday, as quoted by Money.pl.

Author: The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is phasing out the use of a range of single-use and disposable plastics with businesses being given six months to use up their inventory. Environment Minister George Heyman says the new regulation comes into effect in December and will cover plastic shopping bags, disposable food service accessories, degradable plastics and any packaging made of hard-to-recycle plastics.

Author: Kim Willsher

A broken heel, a rip in trousers, buttons missing from a shirt? Don’t throw them away if you live in France, where the government will pay a “repair bonus” to have them mended in a new scheme aimed at cutting waste. An estimated 700,000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in France every year, two-thirds ending up in landfill.

Author: Matt Simon

Not even the Arctic Ocean is immune to the incessant growth of microplastic pollution. In a new study that analyzed sediment core samples, researchers quantified how many of the particles have been deposited since the early 1930s. As scientists have shown elsewhere, the team found that microplastic contamination in the Arctic has been growing exponentially and in lockstep with the growth of plastic production—which is now up to a trillion pounds a year, with the global amount of plastic waste projected to triple by 2060.

Authors: Leonie Thorne, Evan Young and Penny Timms

Australia's annual plastic consumption produces the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 5.7 million cars, analysis released by conservation groups suggests.

A report, commissioned by the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) and WWF Australia, says skyrocketing levels of plastic use are contributing to global warming and posing a significant threat to our ecosystems and wildlife.