LONDON, United Kingdom—British band Coldplay on Friday won plaudits for shelving a new album tour over environmental concerns, in the latest sign of climate change activism in the music industry.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) praised the move, as the group released its latest album—"Everyday Life"—with only 2 gigs, both in the Jordanian capital Amman.
The performances, staged at sunrise and sunset without an audience, were broadcast free on YouTube.
"It is fantastic to see world famous artists stepping up to protect the planet," said the head of climate change at WWF, Gareth Redmond-King.
"We all have a responsibility to lead by example in the face of this climate and nature crisis—inaction is not an option if we are to preserve our planet for future generations."
Coldplay frontman Chris Martin told the BBC they would not tour until they had figured out how concerts could be more "sustainable."
He listed the amount of flying required and the use of items such as plastic water bottles as the band's primary concerns over touring.
Activists say international music tours impact heavily on the environment, with concern about the amount of electricity used to power stadiums to waste generated by concertgoers.
Coldplay played 122 shows around the world across 8 legs as part of the tour for their last album, "A Head Full of Dreams."
Martin said if the band do eventually hit the road for the new release, they hope the tour could be entirely carbon neutral.
The band is set to perform another one-off concert next Monday at London's Natural History Museum, with the proceeds donated to an environmental charity.
CLEANING UP THEIR ACTS
Coldplay's decision is the latest example of bands and the wider entertainment industry responding to growing concern about the climate crisis.
US teenage sensation Billie Eilish revealed last month that she had tried to make her world tour "as green as possible" with the help of a non-profit consultancy.
The singer told chat-show host Jimmy Fallon she had banned plastic straws and urged fans to bring their own refillable water bottles and to utilize recycling bins at venues.
On her next world tour starting in March, every site will feature an "eco-village" where concert-goers can learn about environmentalism, she said.
Meanwhile, The 1975, another British band, which this year collaborated with Swedish climate change icon Greta Thunberg, are also trying to move towards carbon-neutral touring.
It pledged in September to plant a tree for every ticket sold ahead of their upcoming tour of Britain and Ireland.
Teenage activist Thunberg refuses to fly because of the carbon emissions involved. In September, she traveled to a UN climate conference in New York by boat. She is currently sailing back to Europe.
In Britain, live music events account for 405,000 tons of greenhouse emissions, according to the campaign group Global Citizen, which stages its own zero-waste festivals.
Powerful Thinking, a think-tank focused on the festival industry, estimates the events generate some 23,500 tons of waste each year in the country.
This has led dozens of Britain's biggest festivals to try to clean up their acts, initiating everything from bans on single-use plastic to using renewable energy sources.
The UK Music umbrella group representing the industry said 3.9 million people attended festivals in Britain in 2016.
Glastonbury Festival, staged every June on a farm in western England, is partnering with charities such as Greenpeace, Oxfam and WaterAid to improve its sustainability.
Organizers even deployed portable toilets that utilize technology to convert urine into electricity at this year's festival.
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In the climactic scene of “Toy Story 3,” Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the crew narrowly escape death when a remote-controlled claw lifts them from an incinerator just before flames engulf them.
Now Burger King is set to enact an alternative ending — collecting, sorting and chopping up hundreds of thousands of tiny toys, before melting them into hot plastic at a factory in northern England.
To anyone with childhood memories of beloved action figures, this may sound like an act of carnage — more Dante’s “Inferno” than Disney Pixar. But the “meltdown” is intended as a grand environmental gesture. Faced with growing public concern over the proliferation of single-use plastic, Burger King has vowed to stop giving away plastic toys with children’s meals in Britain and has encouraged customers to deposit old toys in collection bins at the chain’s locations there.
In December, the recycling firm Pentatonic will melt those orphaned action figures, then turn the raw material into playground equipment and reusable tray tables. Burger King plans to eliminate non-biodegradable toys from all its restaurants worldwide by 2025.
“That might be a shame for a tiny minority of people,” said Alasdair Murdoch, chief executive of Burger King in the United Kingdom. “But it’s very clear that long term, people think that we’re doing the right thing.”
For decades, fast-food toys have operated as marketing tools designed to get children eating French fries and Chicken McNuggets. Politicians and public health advocates in the United States have repeatedly tried to ban them, arguing that fast-food marketing aimed at children contributes to obesity.
Those health concerns never swayed the major fast-food companies, but a viral British petition arguing that the toys “harm animals and pollute the sea” has made a stronger impression. It is part of a growing public backlash against single-use, disposable plastic items like straws and cups, as well as myriad other plastic objects piling up in landfills, littering beaches and floating in oceans.
Burger King is not the only chain contemplating a toyless future. In 2018, McDonald’s established a task force to explore “ways to lessen the impact of the toys,” according to Elaine Strunk, the chain’s director of sustainability.
Based on the task force’s recommendations, McDonald’s has moved to scale back the distribution of plastic toys in Britain and other markets outside the United States, although it has stopped short of pledging to discontinue them. In October, McDonald’s offered its British customers Happy Meals with a choice of a toy or a bag of fruit.
Next year, children at its British locations will be able to choose between a toy or a book. In the past, McDonald’s has handed out Roald Dahl books, as well as stories about dinosaurs by English author Cressida Cowell.
“We are on a journey across all of our categories and then beyond to make more sustainable environmental footprints,” Strunk said. “It’s always a lens through which we look at decisions we’re making.”
But environmental experts say it is not clear whether eliminating plastic toys would meaningfully advance plastic reduction efforts in the fast-food industry, let alone make a dent in the broader pollution problem.
Burger King has said ending distribution of the toys in Britain would reduce its annual plastic footprint by more than 300 tons. But the context for that number is unclear: Burger King has not calculated the total amount of plastic it uses across its global markets, according to its chief marketing officer, Fernando Machado. And at some restaurants in the United States, Burger King continues to serve drinks in foam cups, even as McDonald’s and other chains have banned the environmentally harmful products.
McDonald’s officials said the company was still working out an effective way to calculate its overall plastic footprint and declined to reveal the volume of plastic toys it distributes each year.
“If you’re a company like Burger King whose packaging is seen as a big part of the problem, it doesn’t make sense to act on the toys but not on your packaging,” said Conrad MacKerron, who helps run As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group that has pushed major fast-food companies to cut down on plastic. “The company seems to be trying to impose a certain priority on this which I don’t think is necessarily merited.”
Machado said Burger King planned to eliminate foam cups soon. And in the coming months, he said, the company will publish a website detailing the steps it has taken to reduce pollution.
“We’re not sitting here on any level saying that we are perfect,” said Murdoch, Burger King’s chief in the United Kingdom. “We’re on a journey, and we’ve got a long way to go, but we’re pretty keen on it.”
For years, McDonald’s and Burger King have resisted attempts to regulate the distribution of plastic toys, which began proliferating in the 1980s. The toys have proved to be powerful marketing devices. A study by researchers at Dartmouth College found that knowledge of fast-food toys among young children “was associated with greater frequency of eating at McDonald’s.”
“It’s been a pretty important part of the business model of the companies that use them,” said Joel Bakan, author of “Childhood Under Siege,” a 2011 book about marketing efforts aimed at children. “Both the packaging of the Happy Meal and the addition of the toy to it was highly effective in reaching children.”
In 2010, legislators in San Francisco voted to bar fast-food restaurants from giving away toys with children’s meals that fell short of nutritional standards, arguing that the figurines promoted unhealthy eating. But McDonald’s got around the ban on giveaways by charging 10 cents for each toy.
In the last decade, officials in New York, Nebraska and Wisconsin have tried and failed to ban the plastic toys, stymied in part by the lobbying muscle of the fast-food industry.
Now, rising environmental concerns over plastic waste appear to be succeeding where the obesity argument failed. And fast-food chains have grown increasingly focused on digital marketing tools, such as giving children scannable codes that can unlock games on branded apps, making plastic figurines less crucial to attracting younger customers.
“Maybe this is not the key for them anymore,” said Sara Ribakove, a policy official at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which has campaigned against fast-food toys. “There’s a strong shift in the digital environment and the way we’re seeing marketing. It’s become much more personalized. It’s coming to everyone’s doorstep in a different way.”
Over the next few years, Burger King will gradually replace plastic toys with digital alternatives, company executives said, though the chain could also develop toys made from biodegradable materials.
A handful of other fast-food chains have scrapped the toys for commercial rather than environmental reasons. In 2013, Taco Bell announced that children’s meals would not be a part of its “long-term brand strategy.” Jack in the Box stopped giving away toys in 2011, saying, “We focus on adults and not children.”
But the major rival of McDonald’s and Burger King, Wendy’s, continues to offer the plastic figurines. Recently, the chain rolled out a line of Transformers toys. A Wendy’s spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.
McDonald’s has experimented with toy alternatives in a number of markets, including Germany and France as well as Britain. In Japan, McDonald’s allows customers to return toys so the company can convert them into trays, a project similar to Burger King’s initiative in Britain. In the coming years, McDonald’s officials said, the company expects to distribute fewer plastics toys, as books and other alternatives become more popular.
“It’s all about choice,” said Kandice McLeod, a McDonald’s official who oversees Happy Meal toys. “Our customers want to know that they have a choice in what they’re going to receive.”
In the United States, however, one crucial constituency appears to remain broadly supportive of plastic toys: children.
On a recent Sunday night at a McDonald’s in New York City, 8-year-old Amber Smith sat quietly, playing with the miniature Pokeball that had come with her Happy Meal. As far back as she can remember, she said, fast-food toys have been her favorite part of McDonald’s.
“All the toys, in my opinion, are super awesome,” she said. “I’m not picky with the toys.”
Asked about the prospect of a toyless Happy Meal, Amber balled her hands into fists. “I like the food, too,” she said. But without the toys, “I’d make a tantrum.”
2019 The New York Times Company
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LONDON - Britain's biggest retailer Tesco has pledged to remove one billion pieces of plastic packaging from products in its UK stores by the end of 2020, seeking to reduce its environmental impact and meet growing consumer demand for less waste.
Britons have become increasingly aware of the amount of plastic they use following David Attenborough's "Blue Planet II" documentary which highlighted the dangers of plastic pollution to marine life.
Last year Tesco said it wanted to remove hard-to-recycle materials from its business. It said on Friday it will have eliminated the hardest-to-recycle materials from its own brand products by the end of this year, removing over 4,000 tons of materials from 800 lines. It said it is also working with branded suppliers on this.
Tesco, which trades from 3,787 stores in Britain and Ireland, employing 340,000 people, now plans to remove the small plastic bags commonly used to pack loose fruit, vegetables and bakery items and replace them with paper ones.
It will remove plastic trays from ready meals, secondary lids on products such as cream, yogurts and cereals, and spoons, forks and straws from snack pots and drinks cartons. It also plans to remove 200 million pieces of plastic used to pack clothing and greetings cards.
Tesco has told more than 1,500 suppliers that packaging will be key to deciding which products are sold in its stores. It has informed them it reserves the right to no longer stock products that use excessive or hard-to-recycle materials.
“Our work to remove, reduce, reuse & recycle is already transforming our packaging," said Chief Executive Dave Lewis.
"By focusing on solutions that we can apply across all our UK stores and supply chain, we can make a significant difference and achieve real scale in our efforts to tackle plastic," he said.
In recent years Britain has slashed the use of plastic bags by introducing a 5 pence charge for each one. The government has also considered imposing a "latte levy" on disposable coffee cups which are hard to recycle.
Last month No. 2 supermarket Sainsbury's vowed to halve plastic packaging by 2025, promising to switch to alternative materials and refillable options.
Lewis, who announced last month he would step down next year after 6 years at the helm, repeated Tesco's call for the government to introduce a UK national infrastructure for recycling.
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THE HAGUE — Anglo-Dutch commercial giant Unilever said Monday it will cut its use of new plastic by half by 2025, admitting the move was partly to appeal to young, more environmentally-conscious customers
The firm, which owns brands including Dove soap, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and Marmite, would cut annual use from the current 700,000 tonnes of a year to no more than 350,000 tonnes.
The move comes as multinational firms face growing pressure to cut the use of plastics which are polluting both land and sea.
"Plastic has its place, but that place is not in the environment. We can only eliminate plastic waste by acting fast and taking radical action at all points in the plastic cycle," Unilever chief executive Alan Jope said in a statement.
But Jope told the BBC that the company -- whose 400 brands also include Knorr, Lipton tea and Magnum ice creams -- was also trying to remain "relevant".
"We do believe in trying to remain relevant for younger groups of consumers, and we know that millennials and Gen-Zennials, the next wave, really care about purpose and sustainability, and the conduct of the companies and the brands that they're buying," he told the broadcaster.
Of the 350,000 tonnes of "virgin plastic" Unilever will cut, it said 100,000 tonnes will come from an outright reduction in the use of plastic packaging, for example by making reusable or refillable packs, using alternative packaging or "naked products" that use none at all.
The other 250,000 tonnes of the reduction will come from using recycled plastics.
The firm said it would also "help collect and process more plastic packaging than it sells".
'GREENWASHING' ALERT
Unilever said it was the "first major global consumer goods company to commit to an absolute plastics reduction".
Alternative methods it has tried recently include shampoo bars, refillable toothpaste tablets, cardboard deodorant sticks and bamboo toothbrushes.
The world produces more than 300 million tonnes of plastics annually, the UN says, with much of it ending up in the oceans.
Companies are coming under increasing pressure to act.
In September, 19 companies including Unilever, Nestle, Google and L’Oreal announced a "coalition" to protect biodiversity at the UN climate summit in New York.
Swiss group Nestle has made a similar pledge to the one by Unilever, saying that it will make all of its packaging reusable or recyclable, and raising to 35 percent the proportion of its plastic bottles that is made of recycled material.
US coffee giant Starbucks is meanwhile planning to ban plastic straws by 2020 while Walt Disney Co. said it would replace small plastic shampoo bottles at its resorts and many British supermarkets have drastically cut down plastic bag use.
There was also a pledge at this summer's G20 in Osaka to tackle marine plastics pollution, although environmentalists attacked it for being vague on detail.
"There is a general awakening of conscience among consumers which is alerting both governments and producers," Gregory Bressolles, professor of marketing at Kedge Business School in France, told AFP.
However he warned against "attempts at greenwashing" by businesses.
"Greenwashing" is a term used to critics to describe efforts by companies to promote often spurious environmental measures for commercial gain.
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TEL AVIV - In the early morning, when the only sound on Tel Aviv beach is the waves, Yosef Salman and his team pick up plastic debris left by bathers or cast up by the sea.
Working in heat and humidity with large rakes, they scoop plastic cups, cigarette ends, empty sunscreen tubes and soiled babies' nappies.
Also present, but impossible to separate from the sand, are microplastics, tiny particles of plastic debris that have been broken down by sun and salt.
"When it rains... you can see tons of plastic in the sand," says Ariel Shay, of the Plastic Free Israel movement, which organizes volunteer beach cleanups.
Despite the activities of environmental groups, Israel remains hooked on plastic.
A June report by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) ranked Tel Aviv's coastline as the third most polluted by plastic waste in the Mediterranean, behind Barcelona and southern Turkey.
Valencia, Alexandria, Algiers and Marseille were listed in fourth to seventh places.
With around four million inhabitants, Tel Aviv is Israel's most populous metropolitan area.
"Every time I go to the beach now, I spend my time cleaning -- it's horrible!" complains Shani Zylbersztejn, with an eye on her nine-month-old daughter, who plays with a plastic fork freshly dug from the sand.
In the upper-crust town of Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv, Limor Gorelik, of the environmental protection NGO Zalul, patrols the sands, offering beachgoers bamboo cups and reusable bags in a bid to wean them from single-use plastics.
BAD HABITS
Gorelik blames Israel's passion for plastic on a lack of education and on deeply ingrained habits, such as using disposable tableware for family picnics.
Observant Jews who want a beachfront lunch on Saturdays are forbidden from washing the dishes afterwards, because their faith bans them from working on the Sabbath.
"They're not permitted to wash dishes so they use disposable plastic," Gorelik says.
Even plastic waste dumped in the bins that dot the beaches can end up in the sea, carried by the wind or by birds which rip open garbage bags in search of food.
Independent researcher Galia Pasternak has analysed coastal plastic pollution in Israel.
According to her data, 60 percent of the waste on the beach comes from the bathers themselves.
Some is also borne by currents from Gaza and Egypt in the south or from Lebanon further north.
CASH FOR CLEANUPS
In 2005, Israel's environmental protection ministry launched a program offering local councils incentives for proven results in cleaning their beaches.
Subject to regular inspection, councils that meet requirements get funding, while failing authorities face cuts or even court, says Ran Amir, head of the environment ministry's marine division.
Amir cites the case of the popular Palmahim beach, south of Tel Aviv.
Palmahim municipal council was taken to court and fined over the state of the beach -- which has since become "one of the cleanest beaches in Israel today", he says.
The ministry's strategy in recent years has also included public service messages on radio and online, along with fines, recycling facilities and education, according to Amir.
"It think it has partially worked," says Pasternak, who helped set up some of those programs.
Zalul's Gorelik, however, says Israel is still trailing behind other countries.
She says charges introduced in supermarkets in 2017 for plastic bags -- previously given away free -- are too low, at just 0.10 Israeli shekels (0.02 euros/ $0.03) each.
"It's not enough," Gorelik says, adding that even this modest measure does not apply to small grocery stores.
She points to new European Union restrictions on single-use plastics.
"Europeans are the leaders on the subject," she says.
"Here, we are very far away."
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SAN FRANCISCO, United States - The San Francisco International Airport is banning the sale of single-use plastic bottles and will require fliers to buy refillable bottles if they're not already carrying their own, US media reported on Friday.
The new rule comes into effect on August 20, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, and is part of a 5-year plan to lower landfill waste, net carbon emissions and net energy use to zero.
"We're the first airport that we're aware of to implement this change," airport spokesperson Doug Yakel told the newspaper.
"We're on the leading edge for the industry, and we want to push the boundaries of sustainability initiatives," he said.
The ban will apply to all restaurants, cafes and vending machines, though not to planes using the airport.
It exempts brands of flavored water.
Filtered water is provided for free at 100 "hydration stations," where flyers can top up glass or metal bottles.
The airport describes itself as an "industry leader" in sustainability, installing solar panels and instructing all tenants to use fully compostable food ware including straws and utensils.
Airports in Dubai and India have announced similar plastic bottle bans, but have yet to fully implement them.
The city of San Francisco banned the sale of plastic water bottles on city-owned property back in 2014, but allowed delays and granted certain exemptions.
Global plastic production has grown rapidly, and is currently at more than 400 million tons per year.
Single-use items represent about 70 percent of the plastic waste littering the marine environment.
Each year, a million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals worldwide are injured or killed by becoming entangled in plastic or ingesting it through the food chain.
Canada and the European Union have pledged to ban single-use plastics starting 2021.
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BANGKOK - Thailand will ban imports of 432 types of scrap electronics within six months, an environment ministry official said on Thursday, the latest country to respond to China's crackdown on imports of high-tech trash this year.
Southeast Asian nations fear they are the new dumping ground for the world's trash after China banned the entry of several types of waste as part of a campaign against "foreign garbage."
Thailand's ban comes weeks after regional neighbor Vietnam said it would stop issuing new licenses for waste imports and crack down on illegal shipments of paper, plastic and metal.
The Thai ban covers 432 types of electronic refuse -- from electronic circuit boards to old television and radio parts -- and will take effect within six months, a senior environment ministry official told Reuters on Thursday.
He said the ban was firmed up at a meeting on Wednesday chaired by Surasak Kanchanarat, the environment minister.
"The meeting yesterday passed a resolution to stop importing 432 kinds of electronic waste and to ensure... that this is enforced within six months," said the official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Mongukol Pruekwatana, director general of the department of industrial works, told Reuters a full list of banned items would be announced soon.
E-waste - commonly defined as any device with an electric cord or battery - can be mined for valuable metals such as gold, silver and copper. However, it can also include hazardous material such as lead, mercury and cadmium.
Surasak told Thai media on Wednesday that imports of some electronic appliances and second-hand devices would be allowed if these items can be repaired and reused.
Scrap metal, including aluminum, copper and steel, can still be imported for industrial use, but must be separated at the country of origin and cleaned, he said.
Thailand's e-waste ban follows a series of raids that began in May on factories accused of illegally importing and processing electronic waste.
Environmentalists say waste once destined for China is being re-routed to Southeast Asia, and new laws are needed or existing laws better enforced to prevent illegal imports.
Vietnam's central bank said on Wednesday it has asked banks to tighten lending to projects deemed environmentally unfriendly. It said banks must have strategies for environmental risk management by 2025.
Thailand also planned to ban imports of plastic waste in the next two years, the environment ministry official said, but he gave no details of the program.
The death of a pilot whale in June found with some 80 pieces of plastic rubbish in its stomach focused attention on what environmentalists call Thailand's "addiction" to plastic bags and packaging.
Thailand's military government has said improving the country's waste management infrastructure is a priority and set goals for 2021.
They included cutting the use of plastic bags and bottles in government agencies and businesses, and plastic bans in tourist destinations. A tax on plastic bags has also been mentioned, along with a target to recycle up to 60 percent of plastic by 2021.
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WASHINGTON - Global coffee giant Starbucks announced Monday it is to eliminate all plastic straws from its 28,000 stores by 2020, becoming the latest corporate giant to take steps to combat pollution from disposable plastic.
After months of tests, many of them carried out in Britain, the firm announced the news on Twitter.
The plastic straws will be replaced by recyclable lids that have a small raised opening allowing consumers to sip their drink, a model that has already been road tested on some of the company's cold beverages in the US and Canada.
Plastic straws have proven difficult to recycle, not because of the material they are made from but because they are too slim for recycling production lines to effectively sort through. The new lids, made of polypropylene, will be big enough for machines to recycle, Starbucks said.
"Starbucks is finally drawing a line in the sand and creating a mold for other large brands to follow," said Chris Milne, director of packaging sourcing. "We are raising the water line for what's acceptable and inspiring our peers to follow suit."
The store will automatically offer cold drinks with the new sipping lid, but for "frappuccinos," a coffee mixed with ice, the store will offer paper straws or ones made of a compostable plastic based on fermented plant starch. Customers who prefer a straw with their drink can ask for one.
By not automatically offering straws with drinks, Starbucks estimates it will save a billion straws a year.
Numerous advocacy groups, including Ocean Conservancy, welcomed the move. Several European countries and cities in the United States are mulling restrictions on the use of plastic straws, although outright bans are still rare. In the US, Seattle -- hometown of Starbucks -- is the only major city to have so far banned the use of plastic straws in its eateries.
Pressure from consumers is driving many companies to tackle waste from packaging. McDonald's is road testing the use of biodegradable straws for its drinks.
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