Kickstart: Looking for compromise

Compromise isn't sexy. (Am I allowed to use the term sexy in a business publication about plastics? Especially when speaking about plastics and public policy? I'm not sure.)

Compromise is, however, needed in global discussions about how the world can — and must — create a more sustainable plastics industry that will continue to produce needed packaging, safety, medical and other equipment while also not clogging waterways or damaging residents' health.

At least that's how U.S. State Department negotiator Elizabeth Nichols sees the need to balance different requirements during negotiations for a plastics treaty.

"We don't want to join a faction here," Nichols told an American Chemistry Council conference recently. "I think we can bring these groups together because we are practical, we're realistic, and we have a position also that brings in both sides."

PN's Steve Toloken attended the ACC event featuring Nichols and he was at the treaty talks in Paris at the start of the summer that saw a group of nations calling themselves the High Ambition Coalition seeking strict rules on plastics and nations from oil-producing countries that want more flexibility.

The U.S., she said, wants to "play a bridge-builder role."

"We occupy kind of a middle of the road path," Nichols said.

For years, researchers have thought that plastics in the world's oceans are like an iceberg: The amount that can be seen at the surface is a very small part of a much bigger problem. National Geographic played off that idea in an iconic 2018 cover.

Now a Dutch study says that may not be true, with researchers from the University of Utrecht saying that about 60 percent of ocean plastics are close to the surface, rather than just 1 percent. In addition, much of that volume is made up of large pieces, rather than microplastics.

As a result, Beatriz Santos from our sister publication Sustainable Plastics writes, that may mean that less plastic spills into ocean waters when compared with previous estimates. Those were based on the expectation that more than 90 percent of plastics weren't seen because they had already sank.

You can find more from Beatriz on the research project here.

Making a name for yourself — or your company — can be a mixed bag. While you want people to know who and what you are, you don't want to become so well known your product becomes a generic name such as aspirin, escalator or zipper.

When Otto Röhm trademarked the name Plexiglas for PMMA on Aug. 9, 1933, he picked a name that would become known everywhere as a clear, tough plastic. Ninety years later, the brand Plexiglas marks its anniversary in a market filled with copycats.

The product now owned by Röhm GmbH (Trinseo has the trade name for the Americas) has gone everywhere from space to submarines. It is used in auto lighting, aquariums, architecture, aerospace and during the early days of COVID-19 was in demand for barriers in businesses, schools and offices.

"Plexiglas is the original. We invented it and see ourselves as a partner for industrial customers who want to develop something new," Michael Pack, managing director of Röhm, said in a news release.