Emily Tipaldo, Director, Packaging and Consumer Products, Plastics Division, American Chemistry Council
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) is the trade association representing U.S. chemical and plastics manufacturers. The plastics division is comprised of companies who produce plastic materials in the US. Member companies include BASF, Covestro, ExxonMobil, Dow, DuPont, and many others.[1] The plastics division is organized by market sectors: automotive, building & construction, and packaging and consumer products. Plastics packaging and consumer products account for approximately $40 billion in plastic resin sales in the US, and account for the largest end use markets. ACC serves a convening function for its members, provides industry advocacy at all levels of government, collects industry data, and commissions industry related research.
What do you actually do all day?
On a day to day basis I do a lot of project management, preparation for or attending conferences, and interfacing with stakeholders. The intended audiences for my work are usually at the beginning and end of the plastics packaging value chain; my project goals are typically things like helping companies or brands with deciding which packaging materials to use or informing government agencies to help them broaden their understanding of issues affecting plastics. I work on projects covering everything from production of plastics to recycling infrastructure and marine litter.
Rigid Plastic Bales at a Recycling Facility
Many of my projects are focused on supporting the life cycle analysis (LCA) of plastic products. We collect annual data on the production of virgin plastic resin and provide that to the LCA database. We also collect annual data from the US and Canada on recycling for bottles, rigid plastics, and film. That data is provided to Franklin Associates, a third-party LCA verification company that then works with the US EPA to incorporate the data into the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management Report.
My role involves a lot of project and vendor management. As an industry organization interested in ensuring credibility for the research we sponsor, we generate questions we want answered and then commission third-party organizations to conduct the research with minimal input from us.
Our work with Trucost is a great example of this. We commissioned a natural capital accounting study to account for the use of plastic in multiple consumer goods sectors compared to other materials and the total impact of each option. Building on a 2014 Trucost report conducted on behalf of the UN Environment Programme, I worked with Trucost to enhance the scope of the study and managed the relationship, but they did the research and drew their own conclusions.
Partnerships are an important part of what we do. We partnered with the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) and other industry trade groups that represent other materials to develop a recycling access study that answered questions such as “What percentage of the US has access to recycling?” and “What recycling resources are available across the nation?” Like all of the studies that the ACC funds, this report was made available to the public. The plastic component of the report is available on the ACC website, and the broader recycling report is available on the SPC website. Something to note about the study is that it was done in 2015 which was before the current restrictions on scrap exports to China. The report provides a good snapshot, but recycling access will likely change quite a bit.
I also do a lot of community outreach. I speak at conferences and connect with recycling coordinators to inform them on the state of the recycling market and help them to bolster their local recycling programs. There are so many things you can do and that need to happen in terms of outreach; it’s all about simplifying communications, picking the right corresponding images, and using the best terms and tools available. There are other great organizations out there that ACC partners with, like The Recycling Partnership, who work on these issues as well.
My outreach work includes communicating the results of our research, answering questions, and connecting people. We get a lot of questions from throughout the value chain about plastic sustainability, recyclability claims and potential impacts from the Chinese scrap restrictions.
What are some of the key skills for success in this role?
I don’t think you need a particular degree or specific training to do this work. You just need to be able to think critically, be a quick learner, communicate effectively, and be able to avoid getting caught up in bureaucracy. Even if you don’t have a technical background you can learn a lot from the subject matter experts around you. It’s important to be able to break down really technical issues into language that non-technical people can understand.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I love being able to engage with so many different people across the value chain and in such a variety of industries. It’s interesting to work with brand owners like Walmart, Target, Amazon, P&G, and Unilever that are different but share a common thread which is that interest in sustainability. It’s really cool to get that bigger picture of the entire industry and to be able to work with the different players in different ways.
What is the hardest part of your job?
I think one of the hardest parts for anyone who first joins a trade association is figuring out how to find and develop one single voice from an entire industry composed of many different companies. Your job is to represent that industry faithfully, but each member comes to the table with a different corporate philosophy and each one has interpreted sustainability or the circular economy a bit differently based on their business operations and values. Some plastics manufacturers are really pushing the envelope with entire teams devoted to recycling and recovery, while others haven’t prioritized it historically and are just in the early stages. We have to work to find a common ground where most of the members are and then bring the rest along. It’s getting easier but it’s an ongoing challenge.
What is your proudest professional achievement?
I was really proud of the role ACC and I played in the development and passing of the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 which is a law that prohibits the addition of plastic microbeads in the manufacturing of personal care products such as toothpaste and bodywash. The law significantly reduces the water pollution caused by these products and was passed in record speed; it was proposed in March and signed in December. There wasn’t a single vote in opposition and it was encouraging that everyone on all sides could agree that this law made sense.
I was also really proud of the natural capital accounting report that we did with Trucost. It took a lot of work to get all of our members comfortable with the idea of doing that report; all of the research we fund is made public, there is no way to sugarcoat bad results. We knew that Trucost was going to be thorough and straightforward in their reporting and I think it’s very telling that we were able to move forward with it. I don’t know of any other manufacturing industry that has done a report like this. It was so well done that it won the 2017/2018 Farsight Award, which recognizes the best individual piece of analysis done by an investment research institution that integrates traditional financial analysis with longer-term environmental, social & governance issues.
The report is a great marker to have available to everyone; it’s grounded in good data and did a great job of highlighting where the industry as a whole should focus on improving. The results were actually a bit counterintuitive, while there were a lot of opportunities identified with downstream materials management, there were even more actionable and impactful improvements identified that the manufacturers could do themselves upstream.
It’s hard for consumers to internalize the fact that where we actually see the biggest environmental impacts are upstream with oil or natural gas extraction and plastic production. The extraction and production methods have huge impacts on the sustainability of these products, much more so than the downstream management. Many people don’t see or interact with that activity but if we, as an industry, are going to make an impact, that’s an area where we have a lot of control and can make some really meaningful changes. Other important areas of opportunity are in package design or product design for recyclability and reuse or developing better waste management systems globally.
What are the game changers in your world?
The Chinese scrap restrictions have made a huge impact on this industry. Essentially, China has decided that they are no longer accepting many scrap imports from anyone across the globe. This includes plastics as well as paper and some other materials. There are a few exceptions but what they will accept must have extremely low levels of contamination, which is almost impossible. This is partly because China is in the process of building their own capacity to recycle scrap discarded domestically and will not need to rely as much on external sources for scrap materials. It’s also because there were a large number of small companies in China that weren’t processing the scrap in ways that were safe from an environmental or health and safety standpoint. Since between 30% and 40% of US scrap materials have been going to China, that’s a huge market that’s been lost to us and we don’t yet have the domestic capacity to process that material domestically. It’s affected European markets significantly as well.
In the short term the impacts are pretty bad, particularly along the West coast where states like California have relied heavily on the export market. These states don’t have material recovery facilities or end markets that can effectively process the recyclable materials so we’ve seen a lot of communities dropping elements of their recycling programs and landfilling plastics that previously had a market.
The good news is that China is still interested in purchasing the materials that are created from processing this scrap so if we can increase our ability to do things like turning plastic polybags into pellets for manufacturing, there’s still a big market for that recycled feedstock. ACC is engaged with organizations such as the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Washington State Department of Ecology to look at their recycling flows and determine where investments need to be made to process their scrap into materials for which there is an end market. There is also investment from Chinese companies in paper and plastic processing companies here in the US to help increase our capacity to process that material. There are also other organizations such as Closed Loop Partners who are working with businesses, local governments and communities to help develop the right capacity for producing materials with a valuable end market.
Another big game changer is that ACC released two circular economy packaging goals this year for our industry. The first is that 100% of plastic packaging in the US will be reusable, recyclable or recoverable by 2040 and the second is our intermediate goal that 100% of plastic packaging will be recyclable or recoverable in some way by 2030. This has had a big impact on our budgets and the direction of our projects going forward.
A third important trend in the industry is the overall growth in plastic production here in the US. That’s due in large part to the lower energy costs coming from our increased use of natural gas for electricity generation. Many companies are coming from overseas to produce plastic here. We’ve seen a growing global consumer demand for plastic products. There is also an increase in use of flexible packaging like pouches or wraps, which are harder to recycle from a cost and technical standpoint. When you choose to use a flexible plastic package instead of a metal or glass container, or even another rigid plastic container, there are beneficial water, energy, and greenhouse gas savings, but the end of life challenges with recycling are real. On this front, I’m proud to manage a value chain collaboration to solve some of these flexible packaging recycling challenges—a project known as Materials Recovery for the Future.
A Materials Recovery for the Future project test
What was your path to this role?
My undergraduate degree was in American history and I have a master’s degree in international relations. After grad school I wanted to work for a think tank, but it was when the US economy had just turned and I simply needed a job. A good friend’s mom worked for a trade association and directed me to the , which had an amazing job board. I found a position at ACC that I was overqualified for but their work was interesting so I applied. I was in that role for less than a year and then quickly moved into their regulatory practice. I was there for a few years and then when I was looking for a growth opportunity I found an opening in the plastics division. It was a bit strange not having the technical background at first, but it’s been really interesting and I’ve learned a lot.
What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?
Be open minded to non-traditional pathways to getting to where you want to be. Build your networks in the direction of where you want to be; it’s amazing what connections can do for you as you go through your career. Things won’t always go the way that you think they will but if you can see the opportunity for your personal growth and exploit that as much as you can you’ll do well.
What are your favorite resources?
IHS Markit for chemicals and plastic industry news
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition conferences are really useful, they bring together a lot of the players from upstream and downstream.
Packaging conferences such as the Global Pouch Forum and Global Pouch West
The Plastics News publication
Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?
A few people stand out to me as key role models that have shaped my thinking and involvement with the field of sustainability: Jeff Wooster, Patty Moore, Rick Wagner, and Steve Russell. Jeff Wooster is a member of Dow’s global Plastics & Specialty Plastics team, the Chair of the ACC Packaging & Consumer Products Team and involved in so many other industry efforts to enhance plastic sustainability and curb marine debris. Patty Moore has since retired, but she led what is now More Recycling for 25+ years and is a fount of knowledge on all things plastic recycling. Rick Wagner is a sustainability lead for Chevron Phillips Chemical Company and is always pushing others to consider the bigger picture. And, Steve Russell, Vice President of the ACC Plastics Division, continually demonstrates an innate ability to see the big picture while strategically moving the US industry toward greater awareness and involvement.
[1] ACC Plastics Division members: Americas Styrenics, BASF, BayPol, Braskem, Celanese, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company, Covestro, Dow, DuPont, ExxonMobil, Lanxess, LyondellBasell, NOVA Chemicals, SABIC, Sasol, Shell Chemicals, Solvay, Total, Trinseo, and The Vinyl Institute.
Great article.