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It is a great day for big cats who have long being bought and sold as pets and status symbols - but only for some of them. A newly enacted law in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has finally put a long-awaited ban on the ownership and sale of big cats like tigers, cheetahs, leopards, and more as pets. This is a huge victory for big cats who have long been mistreated and neglected by owners who do not have the capacity to care for an animal whose rightful home is the wild.

The world's two largest bottled water companies, Danone and Nestlé Waters, have teamed up with a California startup to develop and launch at commercial scale a PET plastic bottle made from 100 percent biobased material.

Pet care products company Hartz Mountain has redesigned its pet shampoo bottles to save 220,000 pounds of polymer across 10 million bottles, the company's director of packaging engineering tells Packaging Digest.

Naturally alkaline Hawaiian bottled water brand Waiākea says it will be the first beverage brand to utilize PET bottles that degrade in 10-15 years - rather than 1,500 - after teaming up with Florida-based TimePlast.

Producing the meat that goes into US pet foods results in 64 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, according UCLA's Gregory Okin. The geographer's newly published study encourages less-meaty or plant-based pet foods.

Coca-Cola European Partners, Avery Dennison, Viridor and PET UK have teamed up to reduce waste, costs and the carbon footprint of Smartwater production in the UK. The initiative, which turns label waste into products, was rolled out late last year in an effort by CCEP to reduce the carbon footprint of its Morpeth factory by approximately 180-200 tons of CO2. The participating parties expect to achieve annual savings of over $30,000 by simply recycling, rather than incinerating or disposing of bottle liners.

Recycling of plastics - one of the best ways to reduce carbon footprint - offers two major benefits: recycling reduces the amount of oil required to produce more plastic, and also takes material out of landfills.

Miniwiz Sustainable Development Ltd., a Taiwanese architectural firm, completed a building in Shanghai, China, at the end of July, built with 100% trash. The building, Nike's newest concept store, used 5,500 soda cans, 2,000 PET water bottles and 50,000 old CDs and DVDs, the company says.

Big Heart Pet Brands' Milk-Bone bakery in Buffalo, New York, has sent zero waste to landfill for five years, reducing its CO2 emissions by more than 18,000 tons. Since 2008, Milk-Bone has recycled more than 21 million pounds of materials via its zero landfill initiative. This has saved more than 18 million kWh of electricity, 17 million gallons of water, 9,000 barrels of oil, 45,000 mature

Coca-Cola European Partners will increase the amount of recycled PET in its bottles from 25% to 50% over the next three years as part of a new initiative to boost sustainability. The strategy also includes an effort to encourage recycling by promoting reforms to Great Britain's recycling programs.