July 25, 2024 /CSRwire/ - For the second year in a row, Eastman has received the BNSF Product Stewardship Award for exceptional commitment to the safe transportation of hazardous materials by rail. The award recognizes shippers who transport a minimum of 500 loaded tank cars of hazardous materials during the previous year and record zero non-accident releases. BNSF is a serving railroad and valued partner of Eastman’s Longview site.

“Rail is a complex entity with limited options. It feels good to receive this recognition for our work," says Agustin Argibay, vice president of Global Supply Chain and Quality (GSC). “The award represents our commitment to world-class safety and environmental performance.”

Accomplishments such as these are made possible by the safe planning, handling, and shipping of hazardous materials by GSC team members like Anna Combs, a rail procurement manager.

“Rail is a big part of what we do at Eastman and keeps our supply chain going,” Combs says. “It’s not just getting material to our customers; we also ship material back and forth between our plant sites so manufacturing can make other products. We also bring in raw materials via rail like coal, methanol, and lots of other key raw ingredients.”

Combs, part of a growing group of women in supply chain, calls the award "a great achievement, because it involves folks setting our corporate strategy, all the way through to those out in the plants actually doing the materials handling and loading rail cars day-in and day-out.”

Eastman was among 108 other BNSF customers that met stringent criteria for the Product Stewardship Award. Eastman currently forwards around 2,500 shipments annually via BNSF controlled railroad.

Eastman

Eastman

Founded in 1920, Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company’s innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,000 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries. The company had 2023 revenue of approximately $9.2 billion and is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA.

About Eastman in the circular economy: In 2019, Eastman became the first company to begin commercial-scale chemical recycling for a broad set of waste plastics that would otherwise be landfilled or, worse, wind up in the environment. Eastman's molecular recycling technologies can process waste plastics traditional mechanical recycling methods cannot—including polyesters, polypropylene, polyethylene, and polystyrene—derived from a variety of sources, including single-use plastics, textiles, and carpet. These technologies provide a true circular solution of endless recycling for materials, allowing them to be reused repeatedly.

To learn more about how we’re working to make a more circular economy visit eastman.eco.

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