Customers are driving these changes.
Today, NOVA Chemicals customers want products that contain a percentage of post-consumer recycled material. NOVA Chemicals wants to partner with companies that can help it thrive.
Things have clearly changed. Before, you had to choose between virgin resin and recycled resin. Now, we marry the two. You need both, and NOVA Chemicals understands that.
Dow Chemical once understood that too. When I started out in the industry 30 years ago, I partnered with Dow Chemical. We supplied those materials to Dow Chemical. Its major customers wanted postconsumer recycled materials. That was in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, the Iraq war broke out, and the price of oil dropped to $10 or $11 a barrel. Brand owners no longer wanted to buy recycled materials, because they were more expensive than raw materials.