The Wall Street Journal 09.26.08

It's manufactured in China, shipped thousands of miles overseas, made with plastic and could take years to decompose. It's also the hot "green" giveaway of the moment: the reusable shopping bag. Read more...

Our Take: This article starts out good enough -- detailing how retailers are jumping on the ultra-trendy green bandwagon, often without questioning the sustainability of these cheap reusable bags. Read more...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer 09.11.08

The American Chemistry Council has reported spending $180,625 in August to fight a 20-cent fee on paper and plastic bags that was approved by the Seattle City Council in July. Read more...

Our Take: $180,000 is just the start - small potatoes compared to the total amount industry likely will spend in an attempt to defeat this legislation. If done right, Seattle's bag fee is poised to knock down plastic bag production by 90% (see Ireland's PlasTax), posing a huge threat to industry.

CBC News 09.15.08 The City of Toronto is considering everything from a tax to an outright ban on objects like paper coffee cups, fast-food containers and plastic bags that clog the recycling system. Read more...

Our Take: Part of a growing trend of legislation (still outside the U.S. mainly), taking aim at use-and-toss items often perceived as free. We anticipate more cities will continue targeting the wasteful over-consumption of food containers and paper cups.

Reuters UK 09.26.08

Wal-Mart Stores Inc will give out fewer plastic shopping bags, and encourage shoppers to reuse and recycle them, as the retailer aims to slash its plastic bag waste by a third worldwide by 2013. Read more...

Environmental Leader 10.06.08

IKEA announced that starting this month, the company will no longer be offering plastic or paper bags at any of its U.S. stores. They will only offer reusable bags. Read more...

Our Take: Ikea's plastic bag ban has great sound bite appeal and while we applaud Wal-Mart for doing some of the harder work to reduce consumption, cheap reusable bags aren't going to solve the problem either. Read more...

See our take on plastic bag bans and the problem with cheap reusable bags.

ABC News 09.21.08

Newly discovered bacterial alchemists could help save billions of plastic bottles from landfills. The Pseudomonas strains can convert the low-grade PET plastic used in drinks bottles into a more valuable and biodegradable plastic called PHA. Read more...

Our Take: This interesting lab development will take years to perfect - who knows if it will ever be a viable technology, but we're seeing more work trying to create organisms that will break down plastic...sounds kinda scary!

BTW, plastic bottles are being turned into cash right now - including many viable fabrics and textiles, like clothing, fiber fill, and bags made out of recycled PET (an innovation that we've been offering for years).

Times Online 08.11.08

The price of recyclable plastic, newspaper and cardboard has doubled in 18 months, giving councils a source of "green gold" that could be spent on improving local services. Many are locked into 20 to 30-year contracts with recycling companies and are unable to cash in on the higher cost of plastic and copper. Read more...

Our Take: Reminder - plastics are made out of oil/natural gas. This article was written in August, when oil prices were skyrocketing. Now that oil prices have dropped, will these companies go back to incinerating plastics?

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