The plastics circular economy

Time has been of the essence over the past year as demand for goods outstripped supply, forcing shippers to order more than they needed. Now that consumer demand is waning, companies find themselves with more inventory than they can handle. The national Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI) has dropped 12% over the past year and 14% over the past month while loaded intermodal volumes (ORAILL) are trending higher. Could shippers be using the bottlenecks around ports and railheads and a slower transit time from intermodal to decrease their inventory costs?  There is no denying that intermodal is not experiencing the same decline in demand as its truckload counterpart. Even though these two modes tend to move in relative sync with each other, that has not been the case for most of the past year. 

Today’s global challenges, from climate change to health and digitalisation, are of unprecedented scientific complexity and transcend national borders, rendering isolated action ineffective. A prime example in this regard, the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the need for more science-informed public decision-making and international scientific collaboration on solutions to global crises, once again making science-policy interfaces and science diplomacy a priority for governments worldwide. At global, regional, and national levels of governance science-policy interfaces, fostering relations between scientists and policymakers to enable joint formulation of knowledge and policy solutions, are today widely established.