By Closed Loop Partners.  Excerpt: Starbucks, The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, Peet’s Coffee, Yum! Brands and other global and local brands and restaurants are partnering in  The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project  from the  NextGen Consortium , led by the Center for the Circular Economy at  Closed Loop Partners , to activate an unprecedented collaboration to drive reuse. Starting August 5, more than 30 restaurants in the City of Petaluma, CA, will swap their single-use cups for to-go reusable cups to all customers at no cost, and widespread return points will also be available across the city. This program marks a significant milestone for reuse, as the first initiative of its kind that makes reusable to-go cups the default option across multiple restaurants in a U.S. city, with the opportunity to drive more customers to reuse and displace hundreds of thousands of single-use cups. The Petaluma Reusable Cup Project is focused on supporting customers to create return h...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/22/style/hand-me-downs.html By  Anna Grace Lee , The New York Times.  Excerpt: In a San Antonio garage, two millennial mothers ...Kara Livingston, 36, and Nicole Boynton, 35, ...founders of  Hand Me Up , a small business aimed at helping parents shop more responsibly to cut down on children’s clothing waste. ...There is little data available about how much children’s clothing is discarded, said Amanda Forster, a materials research engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and an author of a  2022 report  that looked at how to extend the life of textiles. The report said that a circular approach focused on reuse and repair is key, and Dr. Forster said that the principle applies to children’s wear as well. ...“You want to try and keep things circulating back through the economy in their original form as much as possible,” Dr. Forster said. ...More  children’s wear brands  have embraced responsible fash...

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/plastic-bags-pollution-paper-cotton-tote-bags-environment-a9159731.html By Phoebe Weston , Independent.  Excerpt: Plastic bags  were invented to save the planet, according to the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959. The bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down. They were significantly stronger than paper bags, which meant – in theory – they could be used over and over again. However,  single-use plastic  took off and now our consumption of this polluting material is one of the biggest threats facing the world’s seas, with marine plastic set to outweigh fish by 2050....