Colgate-Palmolive, Nestle and Procter & Gamble are among the growing legion of consumer packaged goods companies increasingly utilizing QR codes on product packaging for benefits that include providing ingredient transparency and forging connections with consumers through personalized experiences, offering e-commerce options and gathering first-party data, writes Niall Murphy. Jos Harrison, Reckitt's global head of brand experience and design, calls connected packaging a "paradigm shift in the user experience" and noted the technology is gaining popularity among millennials, Generation Z and even elderly shoppers.

Reckitt saw sales of stain removers and intimate wellness and personal care products increase during the first half of 2021, while demand for disinfectants, including Dettol and Lysol, moderated as a result of easing lockdown restrictions and normalizing market conditions. "Nevertheless, both brands [Dettol and Lysol] are more relevant with consumers than pre-pandemic and are therefore structurally better positioned to grow into new places and new spaces in the future," Reckitt said.

Clorox is promoting its new Clorox Turbo Power Sprayer for small businesses in a campaign featuring restaurateur and actor Danny Trejo proclaiming his admiration for "everything turbo," such as turbo-powered cars, coffee machines and phone chargers. Clorox has also signed a deal with Live Nation Entertainment to provide disinfecting services and products in more than 90 US event venues.

Procter & Gamble continues to develop quicker and more cost-effective ways to package products, and the pandemic and social distancing guidelines resulted in new ways to use robots to handle even oddly shaped packaging. The company has several robotic prototypes in the works to push automation to new levels, such as a robot at P&G's global engineering center that is designed to handle and grip complex shapes and sizes of packaging.

The Environmental Protection Agency is crafting a tiered Toxic Substances Control Act reporting rule that will cover three data sets and will accept public comments on the proposal through August 16, Susan Sharkey of EPA's toxics office said during a webinar on Tuesday. "The current CDR reporting requirements would be modified to provide only the basic information needed to identify potential candidate chemicals for prioritization and to fulfill other programming needs. Reporting would continue to be every four years," Sharkey said.

Demand for plastic packaging will likely continue to outpace GDP growth because it's lightweight, cost-effective to ship and has a low carbon footprint, said Dow Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling. "I just use a paper vs. plastic scenario in a grocery store. One truckload of plastic shopping bags would take four to five truckloads of paper bags to replace it," said Fitterling.

New online resources published by ACI provide science-based information about the technology behind water-soluble films, which are used to contain compact, convenient, pre-measured doses of detergent. The information refutes recent criticisms questioning the materials' biodegradability, which rely upon a severely flawed research article and ignores decades of peer-reviewed studies on these widely used chemistries. Read ACI's news release.

ACI, joined by several trade association allies, submitted comments to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation regarding draft testing criteria for a law that limits 1,4-dioxane for household cleansing, personal care and cosmetic products. The draft "Method Performance Criteria" (MPC) provides guidance on what test methods are acceptable for manufacturers to use to determine whether their products comply with the law. Among the groups' recommendations: ensure that the MPC includes "guidance to enable high reliability, reproducibility, sensitivity and accuracy for analytical measurement of 1,4-dioxane in finished products." Read ACI's statement for more details.