Initiatives such as the BioPreferred program, managed by the USDA, can help to encourage the increasing growth and use of biobased products. In two parts, the BioPreferred program has both a voluntary labelling initiative for biobased products, and mandatory purchasing requirements for federal agencies and their contractors. Appropriate labelling is an important [...]
We are very pleased to welcome Shaun Chatterton for this week’s interview. Shaun is the CEO and Founder of Floreon, ‘The No.1 Performing Bioplastic’. Ten years in the making, Floreon is now at the stage where innovators and early adopters are switching away from their old packaging materials and selecting this fully-sustainable option. [...]
From next month half of all Aldi stores in the UK will offer paper bags and the rest will offer compostable carrier bags. At the end of the trial, the option most popular with customers will be selected to roll out across the UK and offered alongside Aldi’s other reusable bags. Retailers [...]
The internet cheered in December when Trader Joe’s announced it would take meaningful steps towards making its packaging more sustainable. The supermarket chain outlined a plan that included reducing and eliminating excess waste, using materials that could realistically be recycled and avoiding harmful substances. It’s the last part that medical and environmental [...]
Working with Huhtamaki, the new cream-coloured containers, which are fibre based and similar in texture to cardboard, are now certified home compostable for the first time. Its suppliers Huhtamaki and Saladworks produced the packaging which can be heated in the oven and microwave, and is cool to touch after cooking. The fibre [...]
A ban on plastic bags came into force in Tanzania on Saturday as part of an effort to tackle pollution in the East African country. It follows similar steps by others in the region, including Kenya and Rwanda, to phase out non-biodegradable plastics. The ban applies to the production, importation, sale and use [...]
The trade body for the plastics industry has held last-minute meetings with government officials as part of a lobbying effort to water down a tax on single-use plastics, internal documents have revealed. Members of the British Plastics Federation (BPF) met Treasury staff this week, the documents state, in their fight to persuade the government [...]
Nobody, it seemed, had thought to look before. When two Austrian scientists discovered last year that it's likely most people have plastic inside their bodies, it wasn’t because they had invented some new, complicated scientific method. It was because they were the first to check. Their approach was simple. They asked eight [...]
The researchers – from the university’s international marine litter research unit – took biodegradable and compostable bags and exposed them to air, soil and sea, all environments they could encounter if discarded as litter. Biodegradable, oxo-biodegradable and conventional plastic remained functional bags despite being in the soil or marine environment for three years. A compostable [...]
The Environment Agency has threatened a crackdown on poor performing composting and AD sites, where plastic is found in material to be spread to land. And the action could have a knock-on effect on local authorities who could be in trouble for breaching duty of care rules for delivering contaminated feedstock to their [...]