Kickstart: A community effort to rebuild

If you haven't read it yet, you should check out Catherine Kavanaugh's story on Robinson Industries Inc., a thermoforming company that is receiving help from current and former employees, the local community and even competitors following a fire that destroyed much of its main production plant in Coleman, Mich.

Just before 5:30 a.m. on March 31, melting plastic from a machine touched off a blaze that would need assistance from 20 neighboring fire departments to finally put out. Even before the fire was completely out, the family-owned business was making plans on how to rebuild while getting offers of help.

"Competitors are giving us their machine time to produce our pallets, shipping trays and other products. That's generous," Marketing Manager Ronda Robinson told Catherine. "We're talking to them individually."

At the same time, officials from Coleman — population 1,200 — plus officials from nearby communities, Robinson Industry suppliers, construction workers and even retirees are asking what they can do.

"It's like how we felt after 9/11," Ronda Robinson said. "People pulled together. It's that kind of a feeling."

There are a lot of podcasts out there. Pick a topic — entertainment, true crime, politics, the environment — and you can probably find multiple podcasts on the topic.

Now materials company Solvay has its own podcast, hosted by CEO Ilham Kadri, "AND is the future."

"The podcast is a tribute to our founder Ernest Solvay, whose lifelong purpose was to bring people together to deliver new forms of progress for society," Solvay writes in its introduction.

Kadri's experience as both a scientist and business leader provides a different point of view from the typical podcast and Solvay has connections that allow it to have a strong science-based focus without turning into a chemistry lecture. In the first episode, Kadri speaks with Nobel prize winners Steven Chu and Ben Feringa.

Topics include sustainability, the work by 2022 Solvay Prize Winner Katalin Karikó used to develop COVID-19 vaccines, women in STEM and the importance of failure.

"We all think we are very smart. We set up [experiments] but often we are wrong. Why doesn't it work? Why does the experiment not work? Science is not about the answers; it's about the questions," Feringa said. "Failure is a learning point where you can sharpen your questions and get to the right answer."

Office furniture giant Steelcase Inc. has introduced its first product made with chemically recycled plastics, the Flex Perch Stool, made from nylon 6 produced by BASF.

The material, part of BASF's Ccycled resins, is a drop-in replacement for traditional nylon, our sister paper Sustainable Plastics writes.

The stool is also fully recyclable, "contributing to the Steelcase mission to create products that are good for people and the environment," said Steelcase Principal Designer Mark Spoelhof.