Tag: plastics

Pennsylvania plastics company settles ‘nurdles’ pollution case for $2.6 million
A Pennsylvania plastics manufacturer will pay $2.6 million for allegedly violating the federal Clean Water Act and will ensure that no more of its plastic pellets leak into waterways, under a proposed settlement with two environmental groups.
- This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
PennEnvironment and Three Rivers Waterkeeper sued Styropek USA, claiming the company discharged large quantities of “nurdles”—tiny pellets used to produce a wide variety of plastic products—into a western Pennsylvania creek, polluting the water and leaving the pellets on creek-side vegetation. Testing by state officials also found that the plastic pollution had increased due to stormwater runoff from the site.

Environmentalists called the agreement, announced Thursday, a landmark that will set a precedent for other plastics manufacturers in Pennsylvania and around the country. It comes amid growing evidence that plastics in general, and nurdles specifically, represent a threat to human health and natural systems.

“It’s a precedent-setting settlement in many ways,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, in an interview. “It has one of the largest Clean Water Act citizen-suit penalties in Pennsylvania history but even more important, it includes requirements that should get the facility to move to zero discharge of pellets.”

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The plaintiffs were joined in recent weeks by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, which intervened in the case, saying the company violated two state laws in addition to the federal statute.

“Pennsylvanians have a right to a clean and safe environment,” DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley said in a statement. “This consent decree holds Styropek accountable for its violations and ensures they act to stop further unlawful discharges while supporting the cleanup of a treasured creek in Beaver County.”

The company said it welcomed the settlement, which resolves a related notice of violation from the DEP, and added that it is committed to environmental quality. “Styropek is pleased that the parties have reached an agreement that will contribute positively to the Beaver County community,” it said in a statement.

The agreement requires Styropek, which uses nurdles to make polystyrene foam, to install the latest monitoring technology to track whether the pellets leak from its Monaca property. The settlement imposes an automatic penalty if even a single pellet is found outside its plant. The company is also required to redesign its stormwater system so that it captures all pellet waste rather than spreading it into waterways.

For now, because the company idled the plant in March, the settlement applies to flows of stormwater from its 400-acre site. If the plant restarts production or is sold, the requirements would also apply to production.

Steve Miano, an environmental lawyer at Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller in Philadelphia, who wasn’t involved in the case, said it’s not clear whether the settlement will set a national precedent as the plaintiffs believe, because other plastics cases are pending.

But he called the consent decree “very comprehensive” and said it “could very well” be used as a template for similar cases. “It remains to be seen if the technologies employed … will sufficiently remove the plastics from the discharges,” he wrote in an email. “The [consent decree] seems to require alternative plans if the initial technology is not effective.”

The required use of monitoring technology aims to prevent future nurdle releases because the pellets are virtually impossible to clean up, said Heather Hulton VanTassel, executive director of Three Rivers Waterkeeper.

“The widespread installation of these technologies is the next step to preventing future plastic pollution and protecting our source drinking water,” she said.

The pellets often look like food to many aquatic animals and birds, which eat them. They remain in the stomachs of wildlife, leading to malnutrition and starvation, and sometimes death, Masur said. As they break down and become microplastics, they serve as magnets for harmful chemicals, including carcinogens, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors, which become more concentrated and toxic as they move up the food chain, with devastating impacts on wildlife and, potentially, human health.

Styropek was chosen for the suit, filed in December 2023, because it had a track record of Clean Water Act violations, Masur said. That’s in contrast to the nearby ethane-cracker plant operated by Shell, although that plant has had a long series of air-quality violations since it opened in 2022.

VanTassel said her group and the Mountain Watershed Association have been watching for nurdle discharges from the Shell plant for the last several years but have not found significant quantities of the pellets from that source. The groups found large nurdle discharges that were traced to Styropek, and that data was used in the suit.

She predicted the settlement will set a national precedent because it’s the first citizen action on plastic pellets to be based on Clean Water Act violations of an inland waterway, and because this is the first time in a citizen lawsuit over nurdles that a state regulator intervened in support of plaintiffs’ claims.

“Our regulators have decided that our agreement to deal with plastic-pellet pollution at the zero-tolerance level is the appropriate way to regulate plastics,” she said.

The agreement is expected to be approved by the federal court for Western Pennsylvania, given that all parties have agreed to it and the judge had been pushing to finalize it, Masur said.

Of the fine, $2 million will support a fund to investigate and clean up pellet pollution in the water, sediment and banks of Raccoon Creek, where the company operates. A further $500,000 will create a fund to support efforts to protect water quality in the creek and nearby areas of the Ohio River watershed. The company agreed to pay another $100,000 in civil penalties to a clean water fund operated by the state.
Jon Hurdle, Inside Climate News

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September 6, 2025
New style of recycling leaves Sonoma County community concerned about pollution

Sonoma County start-up Resynergi says it has developed a new way to recycle most plastics that would normally end up in a landfill. They say they will use a method called pyrolysis, which uses a microwave to heat the plastics to separate their molecules from contaminants. That turns the plastic into an oil that will be reused to make more plastics. “Instead of drilling out of the ground, which causes a lot of greenhouse gases, we take the plastic, chip it, process that plastic,” said Resynergi CEO Brian Bauer. Their warehouse in Rohnert Park is full of various plastics waiting to be recycled while the company waits for the green light from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. However, some in the community claim Resynergi isn’t paying attention to its potential emissions. They say pyrolysis is just another form of incineration. “The lack of regard for the potential health impacts,” said Molly Rubardt, a Rohnert Park resident. “The lack of regard for the potential real fire and explosion risk, we live in a fire-risky area.”The company claims its methods will not involve burning plastics. “Incineration requires oxygen, you’re burning plastic,” said Sasha Kosek, Resynergi’s lead chemist. “Pyrolysis, you have removed all the oxygen and the molecules literally cannot burn.”The other concern is about the plant’s close proximity to Credo High School. Residents fear the emissions will create a health risk for the students. “You can’t have a petro-chemical plant that produces thousands of gallons of oil next to schools and communities next to homes,” said Mike Puccetti, another Rohnert Park resident. Many of the concerned residents protested in front of city hall, asking their council to revoke Resynergi’s permit to operate. They are also gathering a petition to send to the BAAQMD to ask them not to offer Resynergi a permit to start their machines. “Rohnert Park doesn’t allow incinerators within city limits,” Rubardt said. “If it is not an incinerator and it is what they say it is, they need to go back and get reclassified.”However, the company continues to insist emissions will be low. “The emissions coming from here are the equivalent of a semi truck driving down the road,” Bauer said. The BAAQMD sent out three notices of violations in August, claiming Resynergi built equipment without proper permits. They also told the San Francisco Chronicle that its experts evaluated the added risk of cancer from the plant’s estimated emissions would be minimal.Some in the city think this technology could be beneficial for recycling plastics, but they don’t want it this embedded in their community. “Why not build it near Recology or near a highway?” Puccetti said. “I don’t think anybody is thinking it is a bad idea, but why is it in a subcommunity? Why is it right next to a high school?”See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. —

Sonoma County start-up Resynergi says it has developed a new way to recycle most plastics that would normally end up in a landfill.

They say they will use a method called pyrolysis, which uses a microwave to heat the plastics to separate their molecules from contaminants. That turns the plastic into an oil that will be reused to make more plastics.

“Instead of drilling out of the ground, which causes a lot of greenhouse gases, we take the plastic, chip it, process that plastic,” said Resynergi CEO Brian Bauer.

Their warehouse in Rohnert Park is full of various plastics waiting to be recycled while the company waits for the green light from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. However, some in the community claim Resynergi isn’t paying attention to its potential emissions. They say pyrolysis is just another form of incineration.

“The lack of regard for the potential health impacts,” said Molly Rubardt, a Rohnert Park resident. “The lack of regard for the potential real fire and explosion risk, we live in a fire-risky area.”

The company claims its methods will not involve burning plastics.

“Incineration requires oxygen, you’re burning plastic,” said Sasha Kosek, Resynergi’s lead chemist. “Pyrolysis, you have removed all the oxygen and the molecules literally cannot burn.”

The other concern is about the plant’s close proximity to Credo High School. Residents fear the emissions will create a health risk for the students.

“You can’t have a petro-chemical plant that produces thousands of gallons of oil next to schools and communities next to homes,” said Mike Puccetti, another Rohnert Park resident.

Many of the concerned residents protested in front of city hall, asking their council to revoke Resynergi’s permit to operate. They are also gathering a petition to send to the BAAQMD to ask them not to offer Resynergi a permit to start their machines.

“Rohnert Park doesn’t allow incinerators within city limits,” Rubardt said. “If it is not an incinerator and it is what they say it is, they need to go back and get reclassified.”

However, the company continues to insist emissions will be low.

“The emissions coming from here are the equivalent of a semi truck driving down the road,” Bauer said.

The BAAQMD sent out three notices of violations in August, claiming Resynergi built equipment without proper permits. They also told the San Francisco Chronicle that its experts evaluated the added risk of cancer from the plant’s estimated emissions would be minimal.

Some in the city think this technology could be beneficial for recycling plastics, but they don’t want it this embedded in their community.

“Why not build it near Recology or near a highway?” Puccetti said. “I don’t think anybody is thinking it is a bad idea, but why is it in a subcommunity? Why is it right next to a high school?”

See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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September 1, 2025
Reusable water bottles have more bacteria on them than dog bowls and toilet seats, study finds
MINNEAPOLIS — A new survey found that more bacteria is lingering on your reusable water bottles than can usually be found on a toilet seat.

The survey, by WaterFilterGuru.com, had scientists swab common household surfaces for comparison. The study found reusable water bottles had:
- Five times more bacteria on them than a computer mouse
- 14 times more bacteria than a dog bowl
- 40,000 times more bacteria than found on a toilet seat
That same survey found 62% of people clean their water bottles at least once a day, 25% clean them a few times a week and 13% clean them just a few times a month.

Amy Johnston, a University of Minnesota Extension educator who specializes in food safety, says you should wash your bottle daily, whether by dishwasher or by hand with warm water and soap.

“That’s just going to prevent any buildup of bacteria,” Johnston said.

WCCO

Which part of the bottle is most conducive to bacteria growth?

“All those little nooks and crannies are where bacteria are going to want to hide,” Johnston said.

Straws, nozzles and sipping points need the most attention when cleaning, so much that Johnston advises people to do so by hand to ensure nothing’s missed in a dishwasher.

People should also let water bottles air dry completely after cleaning. That will help prevent mold growth.

In addition to cleaning, Johnston said sanitizing should be considered. There are several ways to do that. One method is to submerge the bottle and components in extremely hot water, at least 160 degrees, for about 30 seconds. You can add vinegar or baking soda to the water as well.

Johnston says sanitizing is more important if you use other drinks besides water in the bottle. She says bacteria can multiply in number quickly, doubling their amount almost every 20 minutes.

Touching the lid with dirty hands and rising temperatures can accelerate bacteria’s growth. So too can the type of liquid left behind.

“A sugary drink, or any kind of flavoring component, those sugar and flavor components can be food for bacteria if there are bacteria present,” she said.

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Jeff Wagner

Jeff Wagner joined the WCCO-TV team in November 2016 as a general assignment reporter, and now anchors WCCO’s Saturday evening newscasts. Although he’s new to Minnesota, he’s called the Midwest home his entire life.
Jeff Wagner

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September 10, 2024
Houston’s plastic waste, waiting more than a year for “advanced” recycling, piles up at a business failed 3 times by fire marshal

This story is a partnership between Inside Climate News and CBS News. Watch the CBS Reports documentary, “Advanced Recycling: Does Big Plastic’s Idea Work?” in the video player above.

HOUSTON, Tex.—When the news crew showed up outside a waste-handling business that’s failed three fire safety inspections and has yet to gain state approval to store plastic, workers quickly closed a gate displaying a “no trespassing” sign.

Behind the gate, deliveries of hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic waste from residents’ homes have piled up over the last year and a half next to strewn cardboard and tall stacks of wooden pallets.

The expanding open-air pile at Wright Waste Management, 20 miles northwest of downtown Houston, awaits what the city of Houston and corporate partners including ExxonMobil call a new frontier in recycling — and critics describe as a sham.

The Houston Recycling Collaboration was formed as a response to low recycling rates in the city, a global problem. Hardly any of the plastic products meant to be used once and tossed can be recycled mechanically, the shredding, melting and remolding used for collection programs across the country.

The Houston effort adds a new option alongside the city’s curbside pickup: Partners say people can bring any plastic waste to dropoff locations — even styrofoam, bubble wrap and bags — and if it can’t be mechanically recycled, it will be superheated and chemically processed into new plastic, fuels or other products.

Brandy Deason, a climate justice coordinator for Air Alliance Houston concerned about pollution from chemical recycling of plastic waste, prepares a bag of plastic waste packed with an electronic tracker to see if it’s being recycled.

Dwaine Scott/CBS News

Exxon and the petrochemical industry call this “advanced” or “chemical” recycling and heavily promote it as a solution to runaway plastic waste, even as environmental advocates warn that some of these processes pump out highly toxic air pollution, contribute to global warming and shouldn’t qualify as recycling at all.

But the Houston effort illustrates a different problem: Twenty months into collection, ongoing tracking by environmental groups indicates the household plastic waste people have dropped off still isn’t getting chemically recycled.

A massive plastics sorting plant planned by one member of the collaboration, Cyclyx International, isn’t on track to open until the middle of next year. And the plastic mounting at Wright in the meantime could build up even faster because city officials and their partners expanded their collection program in April from one original dropoff center to eight.

An investigation by Inside Climate News and CBS News that uncovered Wright’s failed fire safety inspections and missing fire permits also unearthed a fracture in the public-private collaboration.

A pile of plastic waste are seen in May at Wright Waste Management in Houston.

CBS News

One of the city’s industry partners, FCC Environmental Services, which operates a large sorting facility for the city’s curbside recycling program, has opted out of the dropoff collection. In a July 2023 letter, the company raised concerns about the safety of storing plastic waste at a facility that lacks required permits.

“As a member of the [Houston Recycling Collaboration], FCC does not want its reputation and image involved in such irregular and risky practices,” Inigo Sanz, chief executive officer of FCC at the time, wrote in the letter to partners without mentioning the Wright site by name. FCC also complained about the focus on storing waste for future chemical recycling while missing opportunities to recycle some of the plastic mechanically.

On one visit earlier this year, a Harris County, Texas, fire inspector found the company lacking fire safety permits and observed “no fire lanes or means of controlling a fire,” documents obtained by Inside Climate News and CBS News found. The site had already failed fire inspections twice before, beginning in 2023.

CBS News

“Five acres of paper and plastic piled up with little or no fire suppression: What could go wrong?” said Richard Meier, a private fire investigator in Florida who reviewed the inspection reports and Google Earth images of the business at the request of Inside Climate News and CBS News. “You have piles and piles and piles of all this fuel,” Meier said. The fire risk only grows with intense summer heat, he said.

Owner Stratton Wright referred reporters to Cyclyx.

Wright Waste Management has been on file with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as a cardboard recycler since 2016, but on Sept. 26, 2023, Wright submitted a “notice of intent” to operate a municipal solid waste recycling facility. That application to the TCEQ revealed a plan to store as much as 2.2 million pounds of plastic waste and a request for permission to exceed time limits for plastic waste storage.

“The application has not been approved and is under review,” said TCEQ spokesman Ricky Richter.

Plastic waste collected from Houston residents is stored indefinitely at Wright Waste Management, as seen in July.

CBS News

In an interview, Ryan Tebbetts, a Cyclyx vice president, declined to discuss the Wright site’s failing fire marshal inspections or its still-pending application with the TCEQ, referring questions back to Wright Waste Management.

“Wright Waste Management doesn’t represent us, and they are currently a temporary solution before we can get [our] facility operational,” Tebbetts said.

FCC declined requests to be interviewed for this story.

The Houston Recycling Collaboration is part of the petrochemical industry’s push for chemical recycling of plastic waste amid growing awareness of the environmental and health risks associated with plastic.

More than 170 nations are trying to draft a global plastics treaty by the end of this year aimed at addressing what the United Nations has called a crisis. In the U.S., lawsuits over plastic pollution are multiplying. So are the calls to reduce production. And California Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating Exxon and the oil and gas industry’s role in alleged deceptive public messaging about plastic pollution and recycling.

Aerial view of the ExxonMobil Baytown petrochemical complex near Houston, where the company has added a chemical recycling facility for waste plastic.

Carlos Chavez/CBS News

In a written statement this week, Bonta said his investigation was nearing completion. The fossil fuel industry has perpetuated “a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis,” Bonta said. “That deception is ongoing today with the industry’s promotion of ‘advanced recycling.’”

An Exxon official said he could not comment on any potential litigation.

But Ray Mastroleo, Exxon’s global market development manager for advanced recycling, said Exxon has “already processed 60 million pounds of plastic waste through our facility. We have ambitions to go even further to 1 billion pounds. And so to say that’s a myth, when we’re actually doing it, I’m not sure I’m aligned with that.”

Ray Mastroleo, ExxonMobil’s global market development manager for advanced recycling, is seen at the company’s chemical recycling facility inside the Baytown petrochemical complex near Houston.

Dwaine Scott/CBS News

During a tour of Exxon’s chemical recycling facility at its Baytown plant outside of Houston, Mastroleo said that the company’s technology turns “a significant amount” of plastic waste it processes into fuels.

In its 2023 draft national strategy to prevent plastic pollution, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that converting “solid waste to fuels, fuel ingredients, or energy” should not be considered a recycling practice.

Last fall, a report by two environmental groups, Beyond Plastics, and the International Pollutants Elimination Network, argued that chemical recycling technology has failed by showing how companies have largely been unable to make it work commercially. And the 2023 annual sustainability report for the global oil giant Shell revealed it was backing away from its corporate goal to significantly ramp up the chemical recycling of plastic, citing lack of plastic waste feedstock, slow technology development and regulatory uncertainty.

Critics argue that chemical recycling is more of an unproven marketing play so plastic production can keep growing rather than a real fix for a global crisis. They cite, for example, harm across the plastics lifecycle from oil and gas drilling to plastic production to plastic waste in rivers and oceans to micro- and nano-plastics in blood vessels.

“Recycling may be a very, very small portion of the solution, but it is not going to solve this monumental plastic pollution problem that we have,” said Veena Singla, an adjunct assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. She called recycling an “end-of-pipe solution that does not require industry to cut down its production or its profits and its plans for expansion.”

Chris Spinder,

Ben Tracy and

Tracy J. Wholf

contributed to this report.

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August 24, 2024
Critics call out recycling

Critics call out recycling “fraud” by plastics industry – CBS News

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About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the United States each year, but only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled. A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity, “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign to “mislead” the public about the viability of recycling. Correspondent Ben Tracy talks with the report’s co-author, Davis Allen, and with Jan Dell, a former chemical engineer, about an inconvenient truth surrounding the lifecycle of plastic. [Originally broadcast April 14, 2024.]

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June 28, 2024
Critics call out plastics industry over

Jan Dell is a former chemical engineer who has spent years telling an inconvenient truth about plastics. “So many people, they see the recyclable label, and they put it in the recycle bin,” she said. “But the vast majority of plastics are not recycled.”

About 48 million tons of plastic waste is generated in the U.S. each year; only 5 to 6 percent of it is actually recycled, according to the Department of Energy. The rest ends up in landfills or is burned.

Dell founded a non-profit, The Last Beach Cleanup, to fight plastic pollution. Inside her garage in Southern California is all sorts of plastic with those little arrows on it that make us think they can be recycled. But, she said, “You’re being lied to.”

Those so-called chasing arrows started showing up on plastic products in 1988, part of a push to convince the public that plastic waste wasn’t a problem because it can be recycled.

CBS News

Davis Allen, an investigative researcher with the Center for Climate Integrity, said the industry didn’t need for recycling to work: “They needed people to believe that it was working,” he said.

A new report, called “The Fraud of Plastic Recycling,” accuses the plastics industry of a decades-long campaign “…to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling,” despite knowing the “technical and economic limitations that make plastics unrecyclable” at a large scale.

“They couldn’t ever lie about the existence of plastic waste,” said Allen. “But they created a lie about how we could solve it, and that was recycling.”

Tracy asked, “If plastic recycling is technically difficult, if it doesn’t make a whole lot of economic sense, why has the plastics industry pushed it?”

“The plastics industry understands that selling recycling sells plastic, and they’ll say pretty much whatever they need to say to continue doing that,” Allen replied. “That’s how they make money.”

Plastic is made from oil and gas, and comes in thousands of varieties, most of which cannot be recycled together. But in the 1980s, when some municipalities moved to ban plastic products, the industry began promoting the idea of recycling as a solution.

Allen showed us documents and meeting notes they obtained from public archives, and from a former staff member of the American Plastics Council. “What we see in here is a widespread knowledge that plastics recycling was not working,” he said.

At a trade conference in Florida in 1989, an industry leader told attendees, “Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”

In 1994 an Exxon executive told the staff of the plastics council that when it comes to recycling, “We are committed to the activities but not committed to the results.”

Allen said, “They always kind of viewed recycling not as a real technical problem that they needed to solve but as a public relations problem.”

The industry just launched a new ad campaign, called “Recycling is real,” and says it’s investing in what it calls advanced recycling technology.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, responded to “CBS Sunday Morning” in a statement, calling the Center for Climate Integrity’s report “flawed” and “outdated,” and says “plastic makers are working hard to change the way that plastics are made and recycled.”

Jan Dell doesn’t believe plastic will ever be truly recyclable: “It’s the same process they were trying 30 years ago, and my response to that is, it’s science fiction,” she said.

Plastic production is set to triple by 2050, and with so much plastic waste piling up on land and sea, more than 170 countries are working on a United Nations treaty to end plastic pollution.

In a letter to President Biden about the negotiations, the plastics industry says it opposes any bans on plastic production, but supports more recycling.

To which Dell says, “The only thing the plastics industry has actually recycled is their lies over and over again.”

For more info:

Story produced by John Goodwin. Editor: Emanuele Secci.

See also:

Drowning in plastic waste

09:02

Ben Tracy

Ben Tracy is CBS News’ senior national and environmental correspondent based in Los Angeles. He reports for all CBS News platforms, including the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

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April 14, 2024
Billions of pounds of microplastics are entering the oceans every year. Researchers are trying to understand their impact.

Panama City — A team of international scientists working on a research vessel off the coast of Panama is looking for something you might think would be hard to find.

“We are exploring the unexplored,” Alvise Vianello, an associate chemistry professor at Aalborg University in Denmark, told CBS News. “…It’s like, you know, finding the needle in the haystack.”

In this case, the needle is microplastic, and the ocean is drowning in it.

An estimated 33 billion pounds of the world’s plastic trash enters the oceans every year, according to the nonprofit conservation group Oceana, eventually breaking down into tiny fragments. A 2020 study found 1.9 million microplastic pieces in an area of about 11 square feet in the Mediterranean Sea.

“Microplastics are small plastic fragments that are smaller than 5 millimeters,” Vianello said.

The researchers are trying to fill in a missing piece of the microplastic puzzle.

“I want to know what is happening to them when they enter into the ocean. It’s important to understand how they are moving from the surface to the seafloor,” said researcher Laura Simon, also with Aalborg University.

About 70% of marine debris sinks to the seafloor, but we know little about its impact as it does. A study published in March by the 5 Gyres Institute estimates there are now 170 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean — more than 21,000 for every person on the planet.

Vianello explains that some of the fish we eat, like tuna, swordfish and sardines, could be ingesting these microplastics.

He says the data collected by these researchers could help us better understand how microplastics are affecting everything from the ocean’s ability to cool the earth to our health.

The scientists are conducting their research on a ship owned by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit that is funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy.

The Schmidts let scientists use the ship at no cost — but there’s a catch. They must share their data with other scientists around the world.

“And all the knowledge gained during these years about plastic pollution, I think, it’s starting to change people’s minds,” Vianello said.

It may be because a lot of what we think is disposable never really goes away.

Protecting the Planet: Climate Change News & Features

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Ben Tracy

Ben Tracy is CBS News’ senior national and environmental correspondent based in Los Angeles. He reports for all CBS News platforms, including the “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell,” “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

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December 25, 2023
Lego drops prototype blocks made of recycled plastic bottles as they “didn’t reduce carbon emissions”

Copenhagen, Denmark — Denmark’s Lego said on Monday that it remains committed to its quest to find sustainable materials to reduce carbon emissions, even after an experiment by the world’s largest toymaker to use recycled bottles did not work. Lego said it has “decided not to progress” with making its trademark colorful bricks from recycled plastic bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, known as PET, and after more than two years of testing “found the material didn’t reduce carbon emissions.”

Lego enthusiastically announced in 2021 that the prototype PET blocks had become the first recycled alternative to pass its “strict” quality, safety and play requirements, following experimentation with several other iterations that proved not durable enough.

The company said scientists and engineers tested more than 250 variations of PET materials, as well as hundreds of other plastic formulations, before nailing down the prototype, which was made with plastic sourced from suppliers in the U.S. that were approved by the Food and Drug Administration and European Food Safety Authority. On average, a one-liter plastic PET bottle made enough raw material for ten 2 x 4 Lego bricks.

Despite the determination that the PET prototype failed to save on carbon emissions, Lego said it remained “fully committed to making Lego bricks from sustainable materials by 2032.”

The privately-held Lego Group, which makes its bricks out of oil-based plastic said it had invested “more than $1.2 billion in sustainability initiatives” as part of efforts to transition to more sustainable materials and reduce its carbon emissions by 37% by 2032, Lego said.

How Lego makes its Lego bricks

31 photos

The company said it was “currently testing and developing Lego bricks made from a range of alternative sustainable materials, including other recycled plastics and plastics made from alternative sources such as e-methanol.”

Also known as green methanol, e-methanol is composed of waste carbon dioxide and hydrogen, created by using renewable energy to split water molecules.

Lego said it will continue to use bio-polypropylene, the sustainable and biological variant of polyethylene — a plastic used in everything from consumer and food packaging to tires — for parts in Lego sets such as leaves, trees and other accessories.

The art of Lego

10 photos

“We believe that in the long-term this will encourage increased production of more sustainable raw materials, such as recycled oils, and help support our transition to sustainable materials,” it said.

Lego was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The name derived from the two Danish words, leg and godt, which together mean “play well.” The brand name was created unaware that lego in Latin means “I assemble.”

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September 25, 2023
Are paper wine bottles the future? These companies think so.

Are paper wine bottles the future?

Are paper wine bottles the future?

01:55

Ipswich, England — A British company is replacing glass wine bottles with a unique paper alternative, and bringing the product to the United States. Frugalpac designs and manufactures paper wine bottles in an effort to help decarbonize the drink industry.

“The overall carbon footprint is much, much lower on a paper bottle than it is on the equivalent glass bottle. We believe it’s up to six times lower,” Frugalpac’s product director JP Grogan told CBS News.

The Frugalpac bottle weighs less than 3 ounces — almost five times lighter than a conventional glass bottle, saving on fuel and emissions in transport. Because each bottle starts its life flat-packed, it also means more of them can be transported at once.

In their factory in Ipswich, southern England, the pre-cut recycled cardboard goes through a purpose-built machine that bends and folds the paper into the shape of a bottle and inserts a plastic pouch to hold the drink.

Grogan insists the new format does not alter the taste of the wine.

“Some of our customers have tested with wine and we’ve tested with vodka. People have not been able to find the difference between our products and a product that’s been stored in a control glass bottle,” he told CBS News.

Paper wine bottles made by the British company Frugalpac are seen on a production line at their facility in Ipswich, England.

CBS News

Wine put into paper bottles won’t have as long a shelf-life as that packaged in conventional glass, however. The company estimates red wine can be kept for 18 months in its bottles, while white wine will only last around a year.

This year, the Monterey Wine Company became the first American firm to adopt the innovation. The California-based producer purchased the assembly machine that will allow it to complete the paper bottles in-house for shipment.

“Our partnership with Frugalpac has allowed us to get behind the scenes of how this bottle is made and find U.S. producers for the [card]board and supply the materials right here from the U.S.,” the Monterey Wine Company’s Shannon Valladerez told CBS News.

Frugalpac hopes the reduced carbon footprint and unique shelf appeal of its paper bottles will convince more producers around the world to adopt its model and purchase their assembly machines.

“The whole idea is that we locate the machine close to the producers of the beverages and just limit the amount of movements,” Grogan said. “We put the machines in the different locations and allow them to source components from their own suppliers.”

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September 20, 2023
Nonprofit deploys high-tech barges to collect plastic from rivers

Nonprofit deploys high-tech barges to collect plastic from rivers – CBS News

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High-tech barges are being used to scoop up tons of floating plastic. The mission of nonprofit Ocean Cleanup is to ultimately collect 90% of floating plastic pollution from the world’s waterways. Ben Tracy has more.

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September 8, 2023
‘We simply are nowhere’: EU slams lack of progress at G20 climate meeting

G20 climate ministers failed to make progress on key issues on Friday, drawing sharp criticism from the European Union.

Talks in the southern Indian city of Chennai took place against the backdrop of scientists finding that July is on track to become the world’s hottest month on record.

But the discussions wrapped up without consensus on the global transition away from fossil fuels; last week’s G20 energy ministerial ended on a similar note.

The EU, represented by Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius at the meeting, responded with exasperation.

“At the end of our meeting today, is the glass half full or half empty?” Sinkevičius asked in his closing remarks. “It is certainly empty when we look at where we stand on G20 commitments to address climate change — we simply are nowhere.”

Noting the devastation wrought by extreme weather across the globe in recent weeks, he decried the G20’s inability to find agreement on climate and energy issues as “disheartening.”

He added: “We cannot be driven by the lowest common denominator, or by narrow national interests. We cannot allow the pace of change to be set by the slowest movers in the room.”

France’s Ecological Transition Minister Christophe Bechu also told Agence France-Presse he was “disappointed” with the outcome, adding that discussions with China, Saudi Arabia and Russia in particular had been “complicated.”

The split forced the Indian G20 presidency to publish an incomplete outcome document on issues countries managed to agree on, as well as an additional chair’s summary on others where ministers did not reach consensus.

“There are some issues about energy and target-oriented issues,” Indian Climate Minister Bhupender Yadav acknowledged in a press conference Friday.

There was no agreement on setting global goals for scaling up the deployment of renewables and energy efficiency — a key objective for the Emirati presidency of this year’s COP28 climate talks — or on phasing down planet-warming fossil fuels.

Earlier on Friday, COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber expressed concern that the EU-backed target for tripling global renewable capacity had “yet to find expression in G20 outcomes.”

The chair’s summary included a short section on the energy transition that listed the issues that were discussed, concluding: “G20 members expressed views reiterating their positions” outlined at last weekend’s energy ministerial in Goa.

Discussions on efforts to reach a peak in global emissions by 2025 also ended without consensus, according to the document.

German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan echoed Sinkevičius’ disappointment, saying: “While fires rage around the world and temperatures break records, the G20 as a group has unfortunately been unable to act with the necessary sense of urgency and clarity.”

Progress, she added, “was blocked by a small group of countries.”

The EU and Germany both praised the G20’s “strong signal” on stepping up the fight against plastic pollution and deforestation, as well as countries’ agreement to look at deep-sea mining regulation.

Still, on climate, the G20 “were asked to make bold choices, to demonstrate courage, commitment and leadership,” said Sinkevičius. “But we, collectively, failed to achieve that.”

All eyes are now on the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi in September.

“The disappointing G20 energy and climate outcomes show ministers don’t have the mandate to negotiate on the defining issues of our time,” said Luca Bergamaschi, co-founder of Italian climate think tank ECCO. “G20 leaders must step in and together agree the actions needed for a safer planet.”

Louise Guillot contributed reporting.

Zia Weise

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July 27, 2023
Global plastic treaty talks limp on despite blockade by oil-rich countries

PARIS — Getting 170-plus countries to agree on a global treaty to fight plastic pollution was never going to be easy. But negotiators didn’t think clearing the first hurdle would be this hard.

A second round of U.N. talks for an international plan to tackle plastic pollution limped toward its conclusion Friday, marred by delays, protests, and geopolitical tensions.

A key aim for many countries was to give the go-ahead for the broad strokes of a plastics treaty to be drafted, giving them something to work off of at the next round of talks in Kenya in November.

The meeting ended Friday evening with a mandate to draft the text — to the relief of countries in the High Ambition Coalition, which is pushing to “end plastic pollution by 2040,” and NGOs.

“After a week of negotiations, the world is one step closer to the unmissable opportunity of a global treaty to end the plastic pollution crisis,” said WWF Special Envoy Marco Lambertini. “The first draft of the treaty that will now be developed must reflect the ambition shown by the vast majority of countries here in Paris.”

But the road to get there was rocky: Countries didn’t get around to talking about plastic until the third day out of five, stuck in a prolonged debate over voting rules and points of procedure — led by oil-rich countries including Saudi Arabia and Brazil.

An official from a country in the High Ambition Coalition, granted anonymity as they’re not authorized to speak on the record, accused the nations of purposely “blowing up” the talks in Paris and leading a “coordinated” resistance.

It was a “very difficult” start to the week, French Environment Minister Christophe Béchu admitted to reporters on Friday.

Disputes and delays

When negotiations kicked off in France’s capital on Monday, the executive secretary shepherding the talks, Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, called on nations to “make Paris count.”

But NGOs and negotiators say the deadlock over voting procedures took precious time away from more substantive discussions on the treaty.

One side — led by countries including Saudi Arabia, Brazil, China and India — pushed for treaty decisions to be adopted by consensus, giving individual countries veto power. Other countries — including the EU, the U.S., the U.K and Norway — wanted them to be put to a vote, dependent on a two-thirds majority.

Bethan Laughlin, a senior policy specialist for the Zoological Society of London who attended the talks, labeled it a “manufactured deadlock” designed by industry-friendly nations to torpedo progress on the negotiations.

The second round of U.N. talks on how to tackle plastic pollution was marred by delays, protests and geopolitical tensions | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

By Wednesday, countries impatient to break up into task forces and get into the meat of discussions had had enough.

Camila Isabel Zepeda Lizama, director general of global issues at the Mexican foreign affairs ministry, stuck her country’s nameplate up in the air, waving it back and forth in protest. “Let’s just stand up and go to contact groups,” she said, already standing with her backpack on. “Please, all delegates.”

She led a swift evacuation from the room to thunderous cheering and applause. “Viva Mexico!” cried one participant as delegates and observers filed out for a break before heading to negotiations.

But the victory was short-lived. Delegates unhappy with how the meeting had finished, including Russia, India and Saudi Arabia, demanded that delegates come back into the room to finish the meeting according to protocol — delaying talks even further.

No ‘real discussion’

The voting debate was resolved with a wobbly compromise: If a vote is called, members “will recall this lack of agreement.”

The compromise allowed members to move out of the deadlock, but “the core substantive issues remain unsettled,” said David Azoulay, a senior attorney at the Center for Environmental Law.

Those delays left little time to discuss the actual ins and outs of the future plastics treaty — including whether to reduce plastic production, how to fund the implementation of the treaty, and whether to ban certain single-use plastic products.

“The meeting has been somewhat destroyed,” said the official from a country in the High Ambition Coalition. “We have not had a real discussion. We just had a bunch of interventions that almost doesn’t make sense.”

Laughlin, from the Zoological Society of London, said deadlock is “understandable in places of immense contention such as financing … but to see it done on procedural matters is incredibly frustrating.”

French environment minister Béchu struck a more positive note on the last day of the meeting, telling reporters that procedural topics had to be hashed out sooner rather than later.

But he seemingly couldn’t resist a barbed comment toward the oil-rich countries that had been a thorn in the side of members pushing for an ambitious treaty — including the EU — saying: “The position of certain countries has sometimes rendered the presence of industrial lobbies useless.”

Leonie Cater

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June 1, 2023
Want to help the ocean? Avoid the moisturizer with shark in it | CNN

CNN
—

It all seems so daunting: plastics in the ocean, dying coral reefs, entire species being wiped out – but don’t click away in despair!

There really are things everyone can do to help make the ocean cleaner and keep our environment healthier.

Here are some easy (or mostly easy) life changes that have a big impact on our environment.

Whenever you eat fish, make sure you choose a sustainable variety that isn’t endangered.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Seafood Watch” program has online guides detailing which fish are your best bets. All of these directories, broken up by region, can be downloaded into a printable pocket guide – so if you’re a seafood lover, it’s a handy resource to keep nearby.

The most consumed seafoods in the US are shrimp, salmon and tuna. If those are among your go-to choices, some more environmentally responsible options to look for include shrimp from the US or Canada; salmon caught in the US Pacific or Canada; and canned tuna labeled “pole-caught,” “pole-and-line-caught,” or “troll-caught.”

How your fish is caught is important. You want to make sure you’re not consuming fish caught in nets that are notorious for trapping “bycatch” – turtles, seabirds and whales often get caught in those lines and die.

And since whales do an excellent job trapping planet-warming carbon emissions – even better than trees – keeping them in the ocean helps us all.

This is a big one…and one of the worst problems facing the ocean, landfills and even our bodies!

Jennifer Savage of Surfrider Foundation suggests supporting businesses that avoid single-use plastics.

If your favorite restaurant still uses plastics, she tells diners to refuse the plastic forks and gently suggest the management move to a more sustainable takeaway option (like bamboo utensils and paper containers and straws) or – even better – go with washable plates and cutlery.

“It saves money, too. If they’re spending all this money buying single-use plastic, a small investment in a dishwasher and reusable cutlery will save money in the long run.”

Also, she says, consumers are realizing they prefer the less-disposable options.

“People love it, people are so much happier. Think about how much better it feels to have a meal with metal utensils and a real plate.”

As consumers begin to worry about things like microplastics making their way into their bodies, this is a “no-brainer” for restaurants, she says.

“They found plastic in our bodies…people don’t want to eat off plastic plates with plastic utensils.”

Surfrider Foundation even has a helpful online guide, highlighting ocean-friendly restaurants.

It’s important to realize that most plastic doesn’t get recycled, according to Savage. She says the US rate of plastic recycling is only about 5% to 6%.

The number system on the bottom of plastic items are not a guarantee they will be recycled. Things marked 1 and 2 — and on rare occasion, 5 — are your best bets, experts told CNN, depending on what your municipality can handle.

“Things that have a number on them … that’s just a fallacy. That stuff just gets sorted out and put into the landfill,” Savage says. Ditto for that “chasing arrow” symbol you see on the bottom of many plastic containers, she says. Most of it still isn’t recyclable.

Some states, including California, are starting to crack down on that misleading labeling and aren’t allowing the symbol to appear on plastic that isn’t recyclable.

So whenever you can: skip single-use plastic and Styrofoam. Support businesses that are part of the solution. And talk to your representatives about phasing it out.

Picking up trash on the beach won’t solve the problem on its own, but it is really important, says Savage.

“At that moment in time, you’re going to have a cleaner beach. You will have less plastic in your environment. Cleaning it up and leaving it better than you found it makes you feel good.”

And that “feeling good” often leads to activism. “Next thing you know, they’re going to city council meetings, contacting their representatives.”

Another bonus of participating in a beach clean-up? It allows organizations to gather data about the most common items that end up as beach litter.

“In California, you don’t see as many single-use plastic bags, so you don’t see them [on the beach as often] anymore. It helps people to see what the biggest problems are. Whether it’s plastic chip bags, or cigarette butts, or whatever.”

Autumn Blum is a cosmetic chemist by day, and a shark-obsessed scuba diver on the weekends.

Ingredients you should avoid in sunscreens
Avobenzone
Benzophenones/oxybenzone
Butyloctyl salicylate
Clear or nano zinc/nano particles
Cylcopentasiloxane/cyclomethicone
Ecamsule
Formaldehyde, diazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin and hydroxymethylglycinate
Methylisothiazolinone
Microplastic
Octinoxate/octyl methozycinnamate
Padimate O
Parabens
Sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate (SLS/SLES)
Source: Autumn Blum/Stream2Sea

She spent years formulating skin products for other companies before striking out on her own to create a mineral sunscreen business. Her inspiration? Seeing a group of snorkelers surrounded by a circle of oily film on the water, formed by the chemical sunscreens they had slathered on. She was horrified, knowing the chemicals were deadly for coral and many fish.

“There are so many things that impact our waters. Something that we use on our bodies should not be one of them. Period,” says Blum. “That’s an easy piece that we can change to make a positive impact.”

Blum says recent chemical sunscreen bans are already making a difference in places like Hawaii, with reefs coming back to life. She’s also encouraged by efforts to renew coral reefs via coral planting.

There’s still no mutually agreed-upon term to describe what’s “reef-safe,” so what you really need to do is avoid certain ingredients that are known to be harmful, Blum says.

Avoid microbeads

Blum also encourages consumers to make sure they don’t buy products that contain microbeads.

After you wash them off your face or body, those microbeads go down the drain, pass right through your local wastewater plant, and dump into the ocean. From there, they can be eaten by fish.

Humans then eat the fish that have eaten the microbeads…and that’s another way we end up with microplastics in our bodies.

Avoid face wash with plastic microbeads.

Shark-friendly moisturizer

Many new moisturizers are touting “squalane” as their new miracle ingredient.

“Squalane is considered a bio-mimic ingredient, which means your body recognizes it,” Blum tells CNN.

It is a common ingredient in sunscreens, cosmetics, and high-end skin products. “The unfortunate thing about squalane is that it’s frequently obtained from shark livers,” says Blum.

Many species of sharks are facing extinction, and several of those species are considered “critically endangered.”

Plant-based squalanes work just as well as shark-based ones, Blum says. So when reading your ingredient label, make sure it says “vegan squalane” or “plant-based squalane.” Otherwise, advises Blum, assume it comes from sharks.

Vera Meyer, a scientist at the Berlin Institute of Biotechnology, holds a vessel made of scale sponge. The institute hopes to produce clothing, packaging and building material from fungal cultures.

Now for the good news: Materials are being developed that could revolutionize all our packaging, Blum says.

Mycelium, made from mushrooms, performs a lot like current plastics.

Meanwhile, researchers at Yale have discovered a separate fungus with tantalizing abilities to break down polyurethane. It will be awhile, Blum says, but “really cool” technology based on plastic-eating mushrooms could be in our future.

“It’s not commercial-ready, but it’s on the horizon,” she says.

So forget “The Last of Us.” The mushrooms may save us all.

New York
CNN
—

Tupperware, an iconic brand that’s woven into the fabric of post World War II America, signaled this week that it could be on its last gasp.

Known the world over for its plastic food storage containers and its sales parties, Florida-based Tupperware warned that the company was running out of cash and needed additional money – soon – to say in operation.

In some ways, the 77-year-old brand is still a titan: It’s, literally, a household name, and its vivid juice- and fruit-colored products are for sale in nearly 70 countries. It pulled in annual sales of $1.3 billion in 2021. But that’s down 18.7% from a year ago.

Last October, in a massive shift in its business model, Tupperware rolled out its containers in brighter hues of red, purple and green onto Target shelves nationwide.

But it may be too little, too late.

Experts say this is what happens when a once-pioneering brand, beloved by families through generations, is unable to adapt to an evolving marketplace, brutal competition and attitudes and needs of younger consumers.

“Tupperware was a disruptor in the market and in households nationwide when its plastic storage containers launched in 1946,” said Venkatesh Shankar, professor of marketing and ecommerce at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School.

“The company also had tremendous cultural impact. The famous neighborhood house parties where Tupperware products were sold by the host to her family and friends was a new way of marketing, combining socializing with direct sales.”

But while the company reaped the benefits of its innovative approach for years, it ultimately couldn’t keep pace with changing times.

History has shown, said Shankar, that nostalgia usually isn’t enough to sustain legacy brands.

Whether or not Tupperware survives as a business, its rich history will likely endure, said William Keep, professor of marketing at the College of New Jersey School of Business.

“I’ve been married for 50 years and we still have and use our Tupperware from when we married. Tupperware was something people gave as gifts at weddings and baby showers,” said Keep. “Clearly its a brand that focused on two things, quality and for much of its history, women.”

Tupperware is named after Earl Tupper, a chemist in the 1940s who created lightweight, non-breakable plastic containers inspired by the seal-tight design of paint cans. The purpose was to help families save money on costly food waste in the post-war era.

The most significant aspect of the invention was a first-of-its-kind “burping seal.” The older models of Tupperware containers would make a burp-like sound when air was let out from under the lid before it was firmly pressed and closed for an air-tight lock.

But Tupperware products didn’t sell well in stores when they launched, according to the company, because consumers weren’t sure how to use the (back then) white and off-white containers.

That conundrum led to an idea to demonstrate the product, which then evolved into the famous Tupperware house parties.

The practice dove-tailed brilliantly with the rise of post-war suburbia: women had bigger homes, bigger kitchens, more money to spend, more children to feed and more responsibilities to keep house.

Into that climate came Tupperware. Its first milky-white plastic product, the “Wonder Bowl,” cost 39 cents, according to Smithsonian Magazine; the museum has a huge Tupperware collection. Over the years, tangerine orange, baby blue and pink and kiwi green products followed.

Tupperware parties became popular social and marketing events in the 1950s and 60s.

The parties were much more than just a show-and-tell, said Bob Kealing, a Tupperware scholar and author of two books on the brand.

These were glamorous affairs, akin to an afternoon tea party, where women dressed up because the parties were a feminized, soft-sell approach to selling plastic products.

“Women wore beautiful dresses, heels, gloves. They wanted to present an upscale version of themselves because these were also events where women were recruited into the Tupperware sales force,” he said. The parties gained traction also because they were one of the few socially acceptable ways for women to make money at the time.

Tupperware products were the centerpiece of the event, carefully stacked and presented to be shown off. “The parties were designed to be fun social gatherings,” including games and prizes, he said, and the most successful Tupperware saleswomen were sometimes rewarded with diamond rings.

While Tupperware wasn’t the first to pioneer the direct sales model, it did scale it up in size and opportunity for women, said Tracey Deutsch, associate professor, department of history of history at University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts.

Tupperware’s success, said Deutsch also coincided with the expansion of suburbs across the country.

Earl Tupper, seen here in the photo, hired Brownie Wise, a Tupperware house party hostess, as his vice president of marketing in 1951.

“Not only did women need the space to hold the Tupperware parties but also space in the kitchen to store these containers,” she said. “And it was also dependent on a certain level of household well-being. You needed to have enough food to require these storage containers.”

Brownie Wise was perhaps the most famous Tupperware hostess of them all. Wise, a divorced single mother living in Florida, held her own Tupperware parties in the 1940s and 50s and became a budding entrepreneur. Tupper himself took notice.

He eventually hired Wise as his vice president of marketing, an unprecedented role for women back then.

Kealing, author of “”Life of the Party: The Remarkable Story of How Brownie Wise Built, and Lost, a Tupperware Part Empire,” said Wise became the face of the brand and was very good at it.

“It was great marketing and the media ate it up,” he said. But she was ultimately fired by Tupper in 1957. “Tupper… saw how the brand was becoming more about her,” said Kealing.

Traditionally, parties were the only way you could buy Tupperware. Over time, the parties became ubiquitous both in suburban and city dwellings. As the company grew, its fleet of hostesses ballooned into a global direct sales force of nearly 3 million in 2019.

More recently, the brand was on a quest to grab the attention of Millennials and Gen Zers and become as relevant in their everyday lives as it was for their grandmas and moms.

That meant shedding the throwback to its “Mad Men” era image, and positioning Tupperware products as buzz-worthy, higher quality and more durable than rivals, high-utility and with an environmentally-friendly purpose.

Tupperware had to go beyond parties or sales on its own website and the brief and limited pilot programs it had tried with retailers HomeGoods, Bed Bath and Beyond, plus an earlier pilot attempt at Target itself.

Tupperware rolled its products into Target stores nationwide in 2022, marking a significant shift in the company's decades-long direct sales strategy.

The shift in strategy came too late. “We’ve seen this happen with Toys ‘R’ Us, Twinkie, most recently Bed Bath & Beyond,” said Shankar.

Tupperware, he said, is facing a perfect storm of stiff competition from other brands – Rubbermaid, Glad, Pyrex, Oxo and Ziploc – selling similar products or even disposable versions for less, lack of interest from younger shoppers and lack of exciting new products and strategies to sell them.

“Millennials, and Gen Zers especially probably aren’t aware of its iconic status and really don’t have a reason to give it another chance,” said Shankar.

“In my mind, the company made two critical errors,” said Keep, professor of marketing at the College of New Jersey School of Business.

“With product, it lost ground to competitors”, said Keep. “Tupperware also consciously didn’t walk away from direct selling even as these multilevel marketing strategies stagnated in the 80s and 90s. When it was clear that model was no longer working, the company should have given up on direct sales and sold through retailers.”

Bankruptcy could be a path forward for Tupperware, said John Talbott, Director at the Center for Education and Research in Retail at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

“The most valuable thing Tupperware owns is its brand. Like Blockbuster, the Tupperware brand will never go away,” he said. “I suspect it could file for bankruptcy and if there is a buyer for it, Target would be a great option to revive the brand with new designs and a new marketing plan.”

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Tag: plastics

Pennsylvania plastics company settles ‘nurdles’ pollution case for $2.6 million

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Houston’s plastic waste, waiting more than a year for “advanced” recycling, piles up at a business failed 3 times by fire marshal

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Critics call out plastics industry over

Billions of pounds of microplastics are entering the oceans every year. Researchers are trying to understand their impact.

Lego drops prototype blocks made of recycled plastic bottles as they “didn’t reduce carbon emissions”

Are paper wine bottles the future? These companies think so.

Nonprofit deploys high-tech barges to collect plastic from rivers

‘We simply are nowhere’: EU slams lack of progress at G20 climate meeting

Global plastic treaty talks limp on despite blockade by oil-rich countries

Disputes and delays

No ‘real discussion’

Want to help the ocean? Avoid the moisturizer with shark in it | CNN

Ingredients you should avoid in sunscreens

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So this is how the Tupperware party ends | CNN Business

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Unbelievable facts

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