Nothing stands out on beaches or in trash heaps, landfills and those piles of garbage floating in the oceans more than plastics. That empty bottle of soda, water or juice is destined to outlive the person who drank it by hundreds of years.

Today, the Business Intelligence Group named 34 companies as leaders and winners of the 2018 BIG Innovation Awards. This annual business awards programrecognizes the organizations, products and people that are bringing new ideas to life. "More than just technology, innovation as a whole is changing the way we all experience the world and these winners are leading their markets," said Maria Jimenez, chief operating officer of the Business Intelligence Group. "We are thrilled to be honoring all of our winners as these are the organizations, products and people who are leading by example and making real progress on improving the daily lives of so many."

TerraCycle is a high-profile company that gets a lot of press, but because it’s a private business, much has been unknown about its operations and income. A new financial filing provides details on how it manages post-consumer plastics, including which major reclaimer it relies on and where it sells recovered resins.

TerraCycle is a high-profile company that gets a lot of press, but because it’s a private business, much has been unknown about its operations and income. A new financial filing provides details.  

Lighter weight, higher performance and more cost-effective than traditional metal or glass packaging, rigid plastic is seeing innovations that challenge its rivals. Another, Procter & Gamble, teamed with recycling company TerraCycle on its new Fairy Ocean Plastic bottle. Made completely from post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastic and ocean plastic, the launch aims to raise awareness of the issue of what can be done to prevent plastic waste from reaching the ocean.