Kickstart: Let’s recognize great plastics companies

Nominations are now open for the most prestigious honor that a North American plastics processor can win: Plastics News' 2024 Processor of the Year award.

The competition is open to all private and public companies or corporate operating divisions engaged in North American plastics processing for at least the past five years. We don't allow repeat winners, although previous POYs are eligible for our Sustained Excellence award.

The deadline for nominations is Aug. 31, and the deadline for final submissions is Oct. 1. Nominations are easy, and you can nominate any company, including your own. You can find the nomination form online at www.plasticsnews.com/poy.

We'll announce the finalists in a January 2025 issue of PN and the winner at the 2025 PN Executive Forum, which will be held March 10-12 in La Jolla, Calif.

We're also opening up nominations for the Plastics News 2025 Best Places to Work awards. These awards are open to both plastics processors and suppliers. Companies must have at least 15 full- or part-time permanent employees working in the United States or Canada, and generate a minimum of 50 percent of their annual sales from plastics-related activities.

The Best Places to Work finalists will also be announced in a January issue of PN and the winners at the 2025 Executive Forum in La Jolla.

We've been honoring the best places to work in plastics since 2014. The registration deadline is Oct. 25, and there's more information about the awards at www.plasticsnewsbestplacestowork.com.

In my role as editorial director of Crain’s Global Polymer Group, I care about more than plastics. It’s been interesting for me to learn more about how tire and rubber companies talk about sustainability — and especially to compare that with plastics.

Andrew Schunk wrote about tires and sustainability last week for Rubber News. It’s a fascinating topic because, for obvious safety reasons, tires have to perform well, and the performance requirements are getting greater, including their use on the heavier and higher-torque EVs.

Single-use plastics manufacturers have to deal with competition from other materials including paper, aluminum and glass. But for tires, there really isn’t an alternative to rubber, although there are more sustainable feedstock options.

As plastics companies know, there’s already a lot of competition for high-quality post-consumer PET resin. Packaging companies want all they can get, because there’s a lot of pressure to do more bottle-to-bottle and thermoform-to-thermoform recycling. But tire makers want that PET too; they need the post-consumer polyester to meet their own sustainability goals.

Tires aren’t cheap, but affordability is still an issue.

Pirelli’s goal is to offer a 100 percent sustainable tire by 2040. Plastics companies’ sustainability targets are much more urgent. But they also have higher hurdles to overcome.

It’s safe to say that the results of the 2024 presidential election could have a significant impact on the plastics industry. But in what ways?

I’ve been talking a lot about that in our Plastics and Politics Live with Steve Toloken, our Washington-based assistant managing editor.

One angle that we’ve talked about is how an Environmental Protection Agency would look under a Kamala Harris administration vs. a Donald Trump administration. It’s pretty clear to us that would be one of the biggest differences relating to plastics.

Last week Politico’s E&E News took an in-depth look at what EPA would look like if Trump wins a second term. They talked to 10 former Trump administration officials and conservative allies who have expertise in energy and environmental policy.

It’s policy geeky and they get into the weeds, looking at not only who Trump would want but also who might be confirmed by the Senate.