In this week's episode of "Worlds Are Colliding," I recently volunteered at an event sponsored by plastics and chemicals maker Lubrizol Corp.
For almost 20 years, I've lived a couple of miles away from Lubrizol's world headquarters in Wickliffe, Ohio, near Cleveland. Lubrizol didn't have any plastics businesses when we moved here, but in 2004 the firm bought Noveon Inc., which included Estane-brand thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and other plastic materials. So our hometown company has been part of my beat for Plastics News since then.
On April 18, Lubrizol held the Wickliffe Sustainability Fair at its HQ site. Several local organizations were asked to attend, including Keep Wickliffe Beautiful, a city group of which I'm a member. KWB does highway cleanups, flower plantings and similar projects.
We had a steady stream of Lubrizol employees at our table during the event. It helped that employees who got a stamp from every table were placed in a raffle to win a Yeti-brand cooler — a plastic product that uses Lubrizol's Estane TPU in its vacuum liner.
At the event, I was able to say hello to Lubrizol CEO Rebecca Liebert and Chief Sustainability Officer Elizabeth Grove. KWB also signed up some volunteers for future projects. In the plastics business world, that's called a win-win.
Thanks to Lubrizol for hosting the event, and congrats to the winner of the Yeti!
Lubrizol is a leading supplier of chemical additives and other specialty materials that employs more than 8,000 worldwide. The company is a unit of investment firm Berkshire Hathaway.
