Plotting the low-carbon future

Everybody says they want a circular economy, but it costs more to recycle plastics at high quality than it does to fashion them from hydrocarbons fresh out of the ground. Chemical executives say they need someone—the government, consumer product companies, or consumers themselves—to foot the bill, or the entire "ecosystem," as they call it, won't work. Eastman Chemical CEO Mark Costa weighed in on this conundrum at last month's World Petrochemical Conference, organized by S&P Global, during a dialogue about technology and sustainability. His company is starting up a plant, the largest of its kind in the world, that can depolymerize 100,000 metric tons (t) per year of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into its raw materials. He pointed out that 45 firms—Camelbak and Stanley Black & Decker among them—have agreed to pay a premium for the specialty polyester resins that Eastman will produce from the materials coming out of the process.