Kickstart: Living in a political world

Could a politician with plastics industry connections make it into the White House?

Some have tried, mostly notably Republican Jon Huntsman Jr.'s brief attempt that ended after the 2012 New Hampshire primary election. (Huntsman's family runs Huntsman Corp., a materials company founded by his father.)

Now Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, has been visiting New Hampshire, apparently laying the groundwork for his own possible presidential run in 2024 — part of a busy field of candidates considering running if President Joe Biden doesn't seek reelection.

Pritzker and his brother, Tony Pritzker, founded Pritzker Group Private Capital, a holding firm that owns plastic sheet maker Plaskolite LLC and ProAmpac, the ninth-largest film and sheet maker in North America, according to Plastics News rankings.

As Greg Hinz from our sister paper Crain's Chicago Business writes, Pritzker has said he won't run if Biden seeks reelection but added that he "did absolutely nothing to cool potential interest from his party about a future potential candidacy for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.," during an appearance on CNN's State of the Union.
Pritzker also must prove his electability this year in Illinois as he seeks reelection.

The person in office, obviously, can have a big impact on policies related to the plastics industry. Consider some of the biggest issues facing plastics suppliers and brand owners currently: extended producer responsibility and packaging; bans on bags and single-use plastics; support for chemical recycling; and whether there will be more hurdles to build new resin plants.

Assistant Managing Editor Steve Toloken and Editor Don Loepp will take a look at some of those big issues during the Plastics in Politics Live editorial webcast July 12 starting at 2 p.m.

The webcast is free for PN subscribers. You can sign up here and start getting your questions ready. You can submit them at any point during the webinar.

There's a lot of plastics in camping equipment, from sleeping pads to tent stakes and in the textiles for tents and sleeping bags. But a viral video making the rounds on social media takes plastics to the extreme.

The reasoning behind the video is far from clear, and it only began to pick up steam when Josh Trebach sent a link to it on Twitter on July 5. The video shows a woman creating a "tent" using 10 rolls of heavy-duty plastic film stretched among four trees. "It's not camping unless [you] bring 10 jumbo rolls of plastic wrap," Trebach said in a sarcastic comment.

As you can expect, the stunt was widely panned and mocked, but in the process it collected more than 9 million views, which is probably exactly what the video creator wanted. On the internet, the number of views is more important than whether a post helps someone or just aims to infuriate people. (See also any of the videos of people cooking food poorly, which creators claim is all about entertainment.)