Insider lingo calls them post-consumer non-bottle rigid plastics. A bit of a mouthful. Average folks call them tubs and caps and lids and cups and the like.

DuPont Co. is leaving behind a forgettable 2015 as it prepares for its massive merger with Dow Chemical Co.

The global market for green packaging - comprising recyclable, reusable and degradable packaging - is predicted to grow at a combined annual growth rate of more than 7 percent through 2020, according to Technavio.

Project Passport, launched by SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association, is intended to provide companies in the food packaging supply chain with a suite of communication tools and educational resources to help convey relevant information about their products to ensure compliance and address the concerns of consumers and customers.

Chemical tanker shipping faces another challenging year of falling freight rates in 2015, but the trade is expected to recover next year, according to the latest edition of the Chemical Forecaster, published by global shipping consultancy Drewry.

Dow Chemical is investing $6bn to enlarge its manufacturing facilities in the United States by 40 percent, based on a wager that low natural gas prices here will persist into the middle of the next decade, a Dow executive said recently.

For more than 50 years, global production of plastic has continued to rise. Some 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, representing a 4 percent increase over 2012. Recovery and recycling, however, remain insufficient, and millions of tons of plastics end up in landfills and oceans each year, according to Gaelle Gourmelon, communications and marketing manager at the Worldwatch Institute.

The European plastics industry has published a manifesto alerting officials in Brussels to the many impediments it faces, and which it hopes will influence European Union policy.