Chemical Technology

Plastic Makers Call for Global Agreement to Eliminate Plastic Waste

The leaders of two of the world's largest plastic makers today called for a global agreement among nations to eliminate plastic waste in the environment, urging governments and stakeholders worldwide to press for a treaty resolution at upcoming United Nations meetings.

Dow Chairman and CEO Jim Fitterling and LyondellBasell CEO Bob Patel participated in today's Wall Street Journal special event "Getting There: A Global Agreement to End Plastic Waste." They spoke on behalf of the American Chemistry Council and the International Council of Chemical Associations, which represent leading chemical and plastic makers globally.

The two told the Journal's Phillipa Leighton-Jones that plastic makers are committed and eager to increase constructive engagement with governments and other stakeholders to advance a circular economy, in which plastics are reused instead of discarded. "Simply put," said Fitterling, "Our vision is to prevent plastics from entering our environment by achieving universal access to waste collection and reusing instead of discarding plastics."

They urged support for a resolution at the UN Environment Assembly in February 2022 that would begin negotiations on a global agreement to end plastic waste in the environment. "We should not confuse the value of plastics with the issue of plastic waste," said Patel. "This is a global challenge requiring a global solution. With support from the UN, we can develop a global framework to help us solve this critical issue."

To enable their vision, plastic makers have proposed a set of five principles to eliminate plastic waste, accelerate a circular economy for plastics, and serve as the basis for a global agreement.
  • All governments agree to eliminate plastic waste leakage into the environment by a specific date and develop regionally appropriate national action plans and policies that allow flexibility based on local circumstances.
  • Achieve widespread access to waste collection and support deployment of technologies (including advanced recycling) to increase the circularity of plastics.
  • Recognize the role plastics play in a lower carbon future by supporting life cycle analysis as a means to evaluate impacts of plastics and alternatives.
  • Support innovation in product and packaging design by developing, with industry input, global guidance on design, recycled content, and resource optimization.
  • Measure progress on plastic waste through globally accepted definitions and reporting metrics, using validated and harmonized methodologies.

About American Chemistry Council
ACC represents the leading companies engaged in the business of chemistry. ACC members apply the science of chemistry to make innovative products and services that make people's lives better, healthier and safer. ACC is committed to improved environmental, health and safety performance through Responsible Care®; common sense advocacy designed to address major public policy issues; and health and environmental research and product testing. The business of chemistry is a $486 billion enterprise and a key element of the nation's economy. It is among the largest exporters in the nation, accounting for nine percent of all U.S. goods exports. Chemistry companies are among the largest investors in research and development. Safety and security have always been primary concerns of ACC members, and they have intensified their efforts, working closely with government agencies to improve security and to defend against any threat to the nation's critical infrastructure.

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Chemify Partners with Prepaire Labs to Apply Ground-breaking Chemistry AI-Robotics to Radically Accelerate the Discovery of Non-Addictive Opioids

Chemify | January 23, 2024

Chemify and Prepaire™ Labs announced to expand their partnership with an additional program to tackle the ongoing Opioid crisis and develop a novel class of digitally discovered non-addictive Opioids as pain modulators, as well as drugs tackling Opioid addiction directly by combining Chemify's breakthrough programmable chemistry platform with Prepaire’s integrated novel open collaboration drug discovery platform. The project, named Toxifree, comes in response to the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) requesting drugmakers and researchers to develop treatments for stimulant use disorder, hoping to address a major gap in the addiction crisis response. After a successful initial partnership, Chemify and Prepaire are now aiming to leverage Chemify's Chemputation technology which enables the automated and integrated design, discovery, and synthesis of complex molecules on demand using a chemical programming language and Prepaire's advanced open-architecture drug development platform. Under the terms of this partnership, Chemify will design and discover novel compounds to identify Opioid-derived hits and develop them further into candidates. Chemify will receive at least USD $30 million in payments and pre-negotiated, success-driven clinical and regulatory milestones for each developed molecule, as well as single digit royalties on any resulting products. Lee Cronin, Chemify's Founder and CEO and Regius Professor of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow has extensive experience leading research efforts to develop solutions for the opioid crisis. Cronin lead a team that won several NIH-prize challenges including winning the grand runner up prize for the design, discovery and automated synthesis of next generation, safer and non-addictive drug-candidates to help address the opioid crisis. "We are extremely excited to combine Chemify's technology for molecular design, discovery and synthesis with the integrated Prepaire platform to expand our collaboration and create a fully integrated, digitally driven drug discovery approach. With this partnership we are breaking ground on a new pain modulation discovery program that aims to tackle the global need for better and non-addictive pain medication. With our unique design approach guided by Chemputation, we are utilizing an evolutionary approach to discovering novel compounds to solve this devastating and critical healthcare need," said Professor Lee Cronin, Chemify's Founder and CEO. "Our partnership with Chemify allows our discovery platform to integrate directly with Chemify's chemical space exploration approach, enabling us to access novel chemical matter that would have otherwise been inaccessible. As we progress our collaboration, we are aiming to build an integrated approach that can be used for many more indications beyond novel pain modulators. There aren't any approved treatments to help address addiction to opioids, whose use has surged in recent years. The purpose of this FDA guidance is to assist in the clinical trial designs for the development of novel drugs to support indications for treatment of moderate to severe cocaine use disorder, treatment of moderate to severe methamphetamine use disorder, or treatment of moderate to severe prescription stimulant use disorder," said Dr Vicent Ribas, Prepaire’s Co-Founder. About Chemputation Digital chemistry applies principles of computation to chemistry for programable chemistry and Chemify has developed the underpinning infrastructure to make this possible for chemical discovery and synthesis. Like a computer program, digital chemistry programs can automatically run chemical experiments, make new molecules, and ensure that complex chemical recipes are always accessible and perfectly reproducible. Chemical programs are precise pieces of code that allow fully transparent and reliable operation allowing the implementation of AI and other techniques with full audit and safety. About Chemify Based in Glasgow, Chemify is a pioneering company digitizing chemistry to provide world-leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and industrial partners access to an exponentially growing space of novel molecules and materials. By leveraging decades of chemistry experience, hardware robotics, and artificial intelligence, Chemify's Chemputation technology enables companies to access an end-to-end workflow for drug discovery, molecule synthesis, and materials discovery. Chemify was founded by CEO Lee Cronin based on conceptual advancements from Cronin's Digital Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. By building the infrastructure to digitize chemistry, Chemify is reimagining chemical research, discovery and manufacturing to benefit all of humanity by accelerating advances across chemistry with a focus on medicine and functional materials. About Prepaire Labs Prepaire Labs is a pioneering healthcare technology company focused on revolutionizing drug discovery and precision medicine. Through the integration of deep learning and biology, Prepaire Labs builds predictive models grounded in genetic, phenotypic, and clinical data. 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Infinium and Amogy Team Up to Spearhead Green Ammonia and eFuels Solutions

Infinium | January 25, 2024

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Chemical Management

LyondellBasell Launches Petrothene T3XL7420: A Revolutionary Polymer Compound for Optimized Manufacturing

LyondellBasell | January 24, 2024

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Chemical Management

LyondellBasell & MSI Technology, LLC Collaborate on Innovative Consumer Packaging

LyondellBasell | February 02, 2024

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