Kickstart: Living in a material world

This hasn't been the easiest year for materials firms. Mergers, acquisitions, trade, tariffs, expansions, closures, the GM strike ... and don't even try to make predictions about what 2020 will bring.

Reporter Frank Esposito's 2019 report on North American compounders is in this week's print issue of Plastics News. Stories from that report headed online this week include a look at what Asahi Kasei's Ramesh Iyer terms a "mixed year," while also trying to lay out expectations for what's coming.

Automotive is expected to slow in 2020, but one thing is certain: sustainability is hot.

Some companies near Chicago are looking at a potential big bump in taxes in 2020, which adds to the complications they face in planning their budgets.

As our sister pubication Crain's Chicago Business notes, rising tax assessments and the end of local tax abatements have got some small manufacturing companies looking at major jumps in their property taxes.

"A CoStar analysis of data from the assessor's office found that Elk Grove Township saw median assessed values for industrial properties rise 24 percent from 2016," CCB notes.

Among those hit hard? Met2Plastic, where President Mike Walter says the injection molding company saw its tax assessment rise nearly 40 percent. For more from Walter, check out last month's What Keeps You Up At Night from Don Loepp.

I swear I ran across this doing legitimate reading about plastics and sustainability. Just remember that, OK?

And I'm sure you had absolutely no reason to come across the information that the website Pornhub (which is exactly what you think it is) raised money to help with marine plastics by filming an adult video on a beach alongside bottles, bags and other debris.

Ad Age has a little background on how an advertising company connected Pornhub with a United Kingdom recycler to raise the profile on issues of marine waste.

Madrid-based creative agency Officer & Gentleman based the "Dirtiest Porn Ever" campaign on the following issues, Ad Age wrote: "Sex sells, sex on a beach makes for great porn staging, and clean beaches are almost as much of a fantasy as actual sex on a beach."

Go ahead and click on the story link. Whether you choose to follow any link from there? Well, the phrase "research" doesn't cover everything, you know. Let's just say that searching for an image suitable for a family website was complicated. So be prepared.