Kickstart: Taking care of the Great Lakes

Growing up on Lake Michigan, I was always aware that there were ... things ... in the water. Not sharks or jellyfish, but minnows and bluegill And an older brother who loved to sneak up on me for an underwater scare.

In particularly nasty years, there were also far too many dead alewives (seriously, those fish clogged beaches far too often in my childhood). And yes, that's me in the photo. To say that I loved the water as a kid is a bit of an understatement.

The thing I didn't think about back then is what kind of non-natural things might be in the water. In recent years, studies have shown the extent of pollution from microplastics throughout the Great Lakes.

So I welcome the news that the Council of the Great Lakes Region has created Circular Great Lakes, an "initiative focused initially on keeping valuable plastic materials out of the waste stream and the environment by forging a future without waste in this vital, binational economic region."

The plastics industry backed Alliance to End Plastic Waste and individual companies including Dow Inc. are also a part of the project to develop a circular economy strategy for plastics in the area.

"Circular Great Lakes will be the catalyst for identifying the transformational projects, forming the partnerships, and mobilizing the public-private sector investments required to ensure this valuable material never becomes waste in this region, North America's economic engine," Mark Fisher, president and CEO of CGLR said in a news release.

Priorities of the initiative include driving systemic changes necessary to close the loop for plastics in the region, shifting away from a linear, take-make-dispose economy and materials management mindset.

With resins both expensive and in short supply, it should be no surprise that technology to make resins go further are in demand.

Nick Sotos, president of ID Additives Inc., says sales for foaming agents are up 15 percent in the first three months of 2021.

"When resins are at these high prices, that becomes the story," Sotos told PN's Frank Esposito. "If you're buying 10 million pounds of resin a year, it's a serious expense."

President Joe Biden is including electric vehicles and the support systems they need in his administration's massive infrastructure spending bill, along with improvements to the electric grid to serve them.

The spending is intended to "catalyze investments in a clean energy economy and encourage low-emission technology necessary to constrain global warming," according to a report from Bloomberg.

Biden is asking Congress to dedicate spending to electric vehicle rebates, charging ports and electric school buses in a quest to drive motorists away from conventional, gasoline-powered automobiles, Bloomberg wrote. Some $174 billion in government funding would go to EV initiatives, according to a White House fact sheet summarizing the Biden plan.

How much of that money will trickle down to plastics firms making EV components or lighter weight car parts remains to be seen. If you want to get more information on the role plastics may play in future vehicles, PN's Plastics in Automotive virtual conference, May 25-27, includes a keynote panel discussion on the electric vehicle infrastructure.