Let’s talk about pollution and five countries in Asia. Or, more specifically, let’s talk about the study that people like to cite from 2015 claiming that five countries in Asia — China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam — account for more than half of the plastics in oceans.That study is brought up whenever there’s talk about new regulations for plastics production in the U.S. It’s an easy way of pointing the blame at someone else, somewhere else. We’ve already seen it mentioned because of discussions in Washington, D.C., about a .The problem is, that statistic isn’t true now and may not have been true then. That’s not spin from some environmental group; it’s from the researchers themselves who say further investigation puts a far higher emphasis on the United States for that debris.The revision is linked to new data that allowed researchers to include low-value plastics waste shipped by the U.S. to other regions. While the U.S. wasn’t seeing that waste on its own shores, its waste ended up as trash for other countries.”We are contributing a substantial mass of Plastic to the environment, both in this country and abroad,” said Kara Lavender Law, a research professor of oceanography at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Mass., who was one of the lead researchers for the study.This isn’t new information. nearly a year ago. I just bring it up now so that in the future, discussions don’t get derailed over outdated research. What was it be like to be on the inside of one of the biggest M&A deals in history?Howard Ungerleider, president and chief financial officer of Dow Inc., took part in a podcast discussing the process of merging Dow Chemical Co. with DuPont Co. in 2017 to create DowDuPont, then the process of splitting those holdings into three separate companies.In the 30-minute conversation with John Warner for McKinsey & Co.’s Inside the Strategy Room podcast series, Ungerleider says the concept of joining forces to create stronger individual companies pre-dated his arrival at Dow in 2014.”Successive DuPont and Dow CEOs met over the years, but they could never reach a meeting of the minds,” Ungerleider says in the podcast.The discussion also touches on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Dow. You can , or find the podcast on most streaming platforms. Add machinery to the list of items seeing a price increase.Sidel Group, which specializes in blow molding equipment for bottles, recently announced it was .Put the blame on higher prices for Sidel’s raw materials along with the microchip shortage that has hit the auto and electronics industries.In addition, transportation problems could interfere with equipment delivery schedules.”We are doing everything that is in our control to ensure the high-quality solutions Sidel is known and celebrated for and to acquire the needed commodities whenever and wherever they are available,” Ko Hoepman, the company’s vice president of portfolio, said. “For this reason, we have increased communication with our suppliers and customers as well as adapted our project execution processes internally so that the component delays have the minimum impact possible.” Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you’d like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at Please enter a valid email address.Please enter your email address.Please verify captcha.Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe. Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge. Subscribe to Plastics News Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.Customer Service: