It’s been a busy week! Let’s get stuck in.

Industry News

Collaborations and Partnerships 🤝:

49ers launch reusable cup program with PepsiCo at Levi’s Stadium. Starting in premium club areas, the initiative will replace tens of thousands of single-use cups with durable, washable alternatives collected and sanitised by Bold Reuse. PepsiCo says it marks their first reusable cup rollout with an NFL team. Read more.

Toast partners with Circulo to scale its ‘Toast Circle’ circular fashion programme. The platform will digitise repairs, donations, resale, and swaps while capturing customer engagement data to boost efficiency and insight. Since 2019, Toast has given almost 20,000 garments a second life. Read more.

Quick Ship Brands taps into Apkudo’s AI-powered Device Passport to boost trust in used-device resale. Quick Ship Brands has announced it will deploy Apkudo’s Device Passport, a persistent, verifiable, AI-enabled record tracking each device’s history. Read more.

Early Upgrade and Zone Global team up to bring DataBot™ to Australia & New Zealand. The partnership enables enterprises to deploy the data destruction tool in-house or via Zone Global’s secure facilities. Each destruction creates a tamper-proof audit trail with timestamps, operator ID, certificates, and photos. Read more.

Circular Connect announces a media partnership with The Circular Tech Awards. Join the Circular Connect team and an outstanding line-up of participating companies at the JW Marriott Berlin on September 6th. Click here to enjoy 25% off tickets!

Company Updates 🔎:

BCG’s “Spinning Textile Waste into Value” report finds 120 million tonnes of clothing were discarded in 2024, losing up to $150 billion in raw-material value. Under 1% is recycled into new fibres, but rates could exceed 30% with better collection, sorting, and recycling capacity. This shift could recover $50 billion annually and create 180,000 jobs. Read more.

Closed Loop Partners’ 2024 impact report reveals nearly 16 billion pounds of materials kept in circulation. Thanks to 90+ circular economy investments across five continents, over $5 billion in material value has been preserved, highlighting the scale and economic impact of their capital-backed circular infrastructure growth. Read more.

Iron Mountain reports record Q2 driven by a 70% surge in IT asset lifecycle management revenue. The asset lifecycle management division hit $153 million, with growth driven by higher volumes, pricing, and recent acquisitions. Total Q2 revenue rose 12% to $1.71 billion, prompting an upgraded full-year forecast. Read more.

Scandinavian travel brand Db is the first to embed Trove’s new trade-in plugin into its e-commerce platform. Now live across the EU and Norway, the “Lost and Found” programme allows customers to trade in pre-owned gear directly on the site. The plug-in transforms trade-in and resale into seamless, integrated commerce. Read more.

Pulse Supply Chain Solutions opens a new electronics repair and recovery facility in Dallas. The site handles smartphones, laptops, telecoms equipment, and more, with capacity for up to 240,000 devices annually. It complements Pulse’s existing Dallas facility, expanding services beyond recycling into board-level repairs. Read more.

Dow cancels its planned chemical recycling plant project with Mura. The Hydro-PRT facility was scrapped following Dow’s decision to retire its Böhlen steam cracker by late 2027, undermining the project's economic viability. Dow remains committed to chemical recycling and is exploring other opportunities with Mura in Europe. Read more.

Regional Highlights 🌎️:

A coalition of major brands launches the US Flexible Film Initiative (USFFI) to scale recycling of flexible plastic packaging. Founding members such as General Mills, Mars, Mondelēz International, Nestlé, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, and PepsiCo, will fund material recovery facilities (MRFs), processors, and reclaimers initially in California. Read more.

From January 2026, UK e-waste laws will cover online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. Marketplaces will be required to register, track, and fund the recycling of electronics they sell, with new rules also adding a separate category for vapes, enabling more granular reporting data. Read more.

Researchers in Texas uncover a high-strength plastic that can be recycled endlessly without losing quality. The Aromatic Thermosetting Copolyester (ATSP) is self-healing, heat-resistant, and stronger than steel when paired with carbon fibres, offering significant potential for sustainable manufacturing. Read more.

Chad launches its first-ever National Circular Economy Roadmap to drive green growth. Backed by the African Development Bank’s ACEF, the plan aims to reduce non-recycled waste by 40%, create over 25,000 green jobs, and expand electricity access via organic waste and biomass recovery. Read more.

The UK’s material footprint hit its highest level since 2008. The Fabian Society warns this trend signals a retreat from sustainable resource use and urges a bold circular economy strategy that includes repair cost caps, mineral recycling infrastructure, and VAT exemptions on refurbishment. Read more.

Policy and Regulation 📖:

EU coalition urges the Circular Economy Act to put reuse before recycling. Industry advocates argue that legislation must back repair, refurbishment, and reuse with clear incentives, rather than defaulting to recycling as the first-line solution. They warn that without this shift, the EU risks reinforcing linear practices under the guise of ‘circularity.’ Read more.

Investment News

Venture and Growth Capital 📈:

Ingka Group makes its first investment in China, backing Shanghai-based plastic recycler Re-mall. The funding will help scale transparent recycled polypropylene production from post-consumer packaging, and aims to help address the global plastic waste problem by contributing to the circular economy transition. Read more.

Swedish cleantech Aira raises €150 million to accelerate residential heat pump expansion across Europe. Backed by Altor, Kinnevik, Lingotto, and Temasek, the funding will ramp production in Poland, boost R&D in Sweden, and grow operations in Germany, Italy, and the UK. Read more.

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Have a great one and we’ll meet again on Monday!

Cheers to circularity,

#TeamCircularConnect #ConnectingTheCircularEconomy