Stories and trends at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics from the week of February 17, 2020:

Was all this plastic necessary? Quartz reports, no one has tabulated the amount of plastic waste that comes from takeout orders—which have surged in popularity since app-based ordering services such as Seamless, Postmates, Uber Eats, and Caviar have made the experience more convenient for people. What experts do know is that people use and discard an enormous amount of plastic, contributed to by the takeout economy. The total amount of plastic created since humans first started making it is estimated to be more than 8.3 billion metric tons (pdf). Here’s the real kicker: 91% of plastic isn’t recycled. Consider a single plastic bottle: It takes more than 500 years to biodegrade.

WSJ: Cord-cutting accelerated in 2019, raising pressure on cable providers

Large cable and satellite companies lost 5.5 million traditional pay-TV subscribers last year, compared with 3.2 million in 2018.

Ocean infinity: Exploration company goes for robot boats at scale: The maritime and scientific communities have set themselves the ambitious target of 2030 to map Earth's entire ocean floor. It's ambitious because, 10 years out from this deadline, they're starting from a very low level. You can argue about the numbers but it's in the region of 80% of the global seafloor that's either completely unknown or has had no modern measurement applied to it. The international GEBCO 2030 project was set up to close the data gap and has announced a number of initiatives to get it done. https://bbc.in/38CaxJG 

To store the wind and sun, energy startups look to gravity: Entrepreneurs and researchers are harnessing the world’s most abundant resource to develop more reliable renewable power. From giant earth towers to compressed-air plants, entrepreneurs are piloting systems to make renewable energy more reliable. https://on.wsj.com/2SuOKhP 

A’s broadcast plan includes no Bay Area radio station: It’s streaming-only: SFC reports, the A's newest broadcast schedule will, for the first time, include no Bay Area radio station. Oakland is moving all of its audio content to TuneIn, a free app available on mobile devices and PCs that also streamed the A's games last year.

5 big ideas for fixing global cities’ most daunting challenges: Cities are complex organisms, which means no aspect of urban life operates in a vacuum. Systems are interdependent, problems tend to have multiple causes, and potential solutions are usually multi-faceted, too. Fortune spoke with a range of experts, specializing in housing, urban design, transportation, and more. We asked what they see as the biggest challenges facing our largest metropolises, and how they believe these problems can be solved. http://bit.ly/32ek4Ve 

Giant brands love Loop’s zero-waste packaging—and now it’s coming to a store near you: A year after it launched, the delivery service that takes back its packaging to be reused is expanding, and you’ll soon be able to find its innovative packaging designs at retail stores. http://bit.ly/3bDfuDY 

There is a new model for measuring the success of cities: Cities that are most successful in addressing these areas and embracing new economic models — the innovation economy, the experience economy, the sharing economy and the circular economy — will be the most future-proof, according to Demand and Disruption in Global Cities, a report published by JLL in conjunction with The Business of Cities. http://bit.ly/2SshSGp 

Four ways work will change in the future: At a Stanford symposium, experts discuss shifting education expectations, technology’s impact, and new worker demands. https://stanford.io/37lju8S 

Growing bricks and more ways to shrink concrete's carbon footprint: Entrepreneurs are turning to CO2-absorbing bacteria and emissions recycling, among other methods, to reinvent the world’s top building material. https://on.wsj.com/2Snn0LE 

Uniqlo replaced 90% of staff at its Tokyo warehouse with robots: At a warehouse in Tokyo’s Ariake district once mainly staffed by people, robots are now doing the work of inspecting and sorting the clothing housed there by Japanese retailer Uniqlo. The company recently remodeled the existing warehouse with an automated system created in partnership with Daifuku, a provider of material handling systems. Now that the system is running, the company revealed during a walkthrough of the new facility, Uniqlo has been able to cut staff at the warehouse by 90%. The warehouse can now also operate 24 hours a day. http://bit.ly/39Fdcm1 

Airbus unveils 'blended wing body' plane design after secret flight tests: Reuters reports, the company unveiled a curvaceous aircraft design that blends wing and body, designed to slash carbon emissions by some 20%. The European planemaker has been carrying out flight tests of a 3.2-metre-wide (10.5 feet) technology demonstrator, code-named Maveric, at a secret location in central France since last year. It lifted the veil on the design at the Singapore Airshow. The concept of a “blended wing body” design has been around since the 1940s and led to the US B-2 bomber, as well as the X-48 research project between Boeing and NASA a decade ago. https://reut.rs/31Ivmk8

The limits of high-speed rail http://bit.ly/37gPOdg 

More than 4 million robots will be in industrial operation by 2022.

0.03% of ocean plastic comes from straws. 46% comes from fishing nets.