APLA ’18: Chem industry must take responsibility for plastics pollution – LyondellBasell CEO

CANCUN, Mexico (ICIS)–Bob Patel, the CEO of LyondellBasell, challenged the chemical industry to assume responsibility for cleaning up plastic waste and to create sustainable methods of preventing chemical pollution during an address to the Latin America Petrochemical Association (APLA) on Sunday evening.

“Plastics are not bad,” Patel told a gathering of about 500 attendees in a keynote speech to the annual conclave of the Latin America industry. “What is bad is what people do with it after it is used.”

Patel said that the industry, as the producers of resins have the responsibility to educate the public and to take action to solve the problems of ocean contamination and other aspects of waste, particularly for plastics.

“We are responsible to take care of our children and to take care of our planet,” Patel said.

LyondellBasell is one of the world’s leading plastics producers and the world’s largest plastics compounder. It is also the world’s largest licensor of polyolefin technologies.

With 17,000 employees and operations in 56 countries on five continents, the company has a footprint and influence to be a leader for change, he said.

LyondellBasell was created through a series of mergers and acquisitions and the company has pursued a rigorous expansion through targeted and synergistic acquisitions. It has nine plants in Latin America, including in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

But is also a prolific builder, having spent $8.3bn in capital expenditures over the past five years.

Patel has helped transform the company from, principally, a supplier of polypropylene to the automotive industry, to one that produces resins and other products aimed at the consumer and packaging sector, electronics and appliances, building and construction and to agricultural uses.

One of its most recent acquisitions was Suez, a waste handler in Europe.

Patel said that LyondellBasell has commited to developing a plastics recycling technology to overcome the nagging barriers to recycling programmes: mixed and tainted waste.

The company is working to refine a process to minimize the problem of adulterants that sharply reduce the quality of the recycled end-product.

“We grind it, we wash it and we make new pellets,” Patel said.

He said that retailer conglomerates such as IKEA, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever are interested in the process, which he says can change the image of plastics.

He said he sees news reports almost daily and describe cities banning single-use plastic bags and other items, or of whales found with volumes of plastic waste in their stomachs.  Those things reinforce his view that the industry can’t stand idly by.

About 8m metric tonnes of  plastic are “leaked” into oceans annually and that is expected to double over the next 15 years, he said.

But the problem is not insurmountable, he said, noting that only 10 rivers dump 90% of that waste into the world’s oceans.

Meanwhile, LyondellBasell is aiming its other commercial efforts to parallel megatrends – the growing middle class in emerging markets, urbanisation, an aging population, lightweighting of automobiles and sustainability. So the company is working on consumer goods, construction materials, medical supplies, high-performance resins and reducing waste and pollution.

“We believe in global view with local execution,” he said. “Its important that the local decision makers are empowered. They know the markets.”

Next up for the company is the pending completion of a 500,000 tonne/year Hyperzone high density polyethylene (HDPE) project in La Porte, Texas, US, which is slated to start up by mid-2019. It is also building a propylene oxide/tertiary butyl alcohol (PO/TBA) project in Channelview, Texas for start-up by 2021

Asked about the company’s discussions with Odebrecht about a possible acquisition of Braskem, Patel said the company is continuing to evaluate a transaction.

“We have been working to understand the company better,” Patel said. “I would say no black or white smoke signals, yet. But stay tuned.”

The APLA annual meeting runs through Tuesday.