What Happens to All the Stuff We Return? The New Yorker takes an in-depth look at the world of customer returns and how online shipping has made “reverse logistics” into a booming new industry, with major consequences for the planet. Read it here.

McKinsey has released a major piece of research into consumer attitudes to sustainability in packaging across 11 countries. The accompanying report highlights differing levels of concern about aspects such as ocean littering and food safety in different parts of the world and makes a series of recommendations for brands. Download it here. 

“As I stepped out of the fancy hair salon recently, I felt sick. Not because I had spent a little too much money on something I could have gone to the high street for, but because of the amount of foil that had been used to colour my locks.” University of Queensland Associate Professor Anita Parbhakar-Fox discovers that the Australian hair industry sends over 1000 tons of foil waste to landfill annually with only 1% of salons recycling, and looks at the wider ‘war on mine waste’. Read her piece here

This year’s Material Matters fair will have a focus on “designers and brands re-evaluating materials and finding new ways to work with waste”. BC Joshua will be showing seating, created with URGE’s Ella Doran, as well as a series of lights with designer and fellow RCA graduate Purva Kundaje (shown above), all made from newspaper pulp. HagenHinderdael and Novavita Design, will present a new product collection made from coffee waste, milk packaging, and fermented sugar. And Planq launches Rezign materials – a new collection made from textile waste such as post-consumer denim. Material Matters will be at London’s Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, from 20-23 September. Details here

The UK’s first solar-powered park-and-ride bus service has been launched in Leeds. The route from Stourton to Leeds city centre has its own solar panels and battery storage system fuelling the buses which run on the route. Business Green has the story here 

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