By the billion

Starbucks Coffee Co. is singling itself out. The Seattle-based company will eliminate single-use plastic straws from its more than 28,000 stores worldwide by 2020.

Starbucks says it has designed, developed and manufactured a strawless lid, which will become the company’s standard. In addition, it will offer straws made from alternative materials, including paper or compostable plastic, to customers who request them because they prefer or need a straw.

Helping Haiti

While many teenagers are surfing the ocean’s waters, one 18-year-old is hoping to rid them of plastics. Jack Foley from Rockville, Maryland, has started ReYuze Cases, a company that makes phone cases out of 100 percent recycled plastic from the streets, canals and landfills of Haiti. One dollar from every purchase goes to The First Mile Coalition, Los Angeles, to aid in its efforts to address undignified child labor used in plastic collection in Haiti.

Foley is a recent graduate of the Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School in Rockville who says he started ReYuze Cases to help save the oceans. Growing up around the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, Foley says he is an advocate for environmental conservation. Recently, he broadened his view and looked to a place that needed his help removing plastic and trash: Haiti.

System-based strategy

Dallas-based consumer products company Kimberly-Clark Corp. has reported the progress it made in 2017 toward its Sustainability 2022 strategy. Among the highlights the firm points to on its sustainability website, www.kimberly-clark.com/en-us/responsibility/sustainability2022, is using 450,000 tons of recycled fiber in manufacturing its commercial tissue products, amounting to 73 percent of its feedstock for that product line.

“By adopting a systems-based approach with key partners, we can play a role in enabling the circular economy, one which is restorative and creates value,” says Lisa Morden, Kimberly-Clark vice president of safety and sustainability.