Steve Toloken

Several global plastic packaging makers are part of a statement from more than 70 businesses and financial institutions urging a new global plastics treaty that would reduce virgin plastics production and try to cut its link to fossil fuels.

Interest is growing in recycled content mandates for plastic packaging. But what makes for an effective law? A webinar took a look.

A widely watched advisory panel in California wants the state attorney general and others to probe what it calls misleading recycling claims on plastic bags and flexible film packaging.

Canada's federal government came out Dec. 21 with a detailed ban on six single-use plastics and said it had longer-term plans for recycled content and recycling rate requirements.

Both Formosa Plastics and environmentalists who sued the company over pellet pollution say that technology developed to monitor for pellets in wastewater should be part of future projects.

As New Jersey's legislative session winds down, an industry lobbyist expects lawmakers to pass what would be one of the toughest U.S. laws mandating recycled content in plastic packaging.

An annual report card from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation said use of virgin plastics by major global brands appears to have peaked, as companies make progress on voluntary pledges.

Analysts at an industry conference said that chemical recycling will still have a high-cost position compared to virgin resin and mechanical recycling in 2030, but could be low cost by 2050.

ExxonMobil Corp. said it is building its first commercial-scale advanced recycling plant and plans others. Recent investments it has made in new virgin plastics capacity, however, are much larger.

Noting "considerable confusion" around chemical recycling and more interest with its use in plastics, the EPA has opened a rulemaking asking how it should regulate the technologies.

A polypropylene recycling firm, PureCycle Technologies, announced plans for its first cluster manufacturing site, a $440 million investment in Georgia.

South Korea's SK Global Chemical is contributing to a plastics recycling investment fund run by the Closed Loop Partners and three other resin makers.

Legislators in Maine and Oregon have become the first in the U.S. to adopt extended producer responsibility for packaging. If signed by governors, companies would have to pay to support recycling.

With only 9 percent of plastics in the U.S. getting recycled, a Congressional science panel took a look at technological innovations that could help.

GreenMantra Technologies has received a Canadian government grant to develop a system to recycle personal protective equipment made with plastics.