Stephen Crawford

EVP - Technology Projects, Eastman Chemical

Search every verified Stephen Crawford interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a 2019 appearance on the program "EARTH with John Holden," Stephen Crawford discussed Eastman Chemical's efforts to address plastic waste through recycling technologies. Crawford stated that the company aims to "take back any waste plastics and pull them out of the environment and rebuild them back up into useful materials" by breaking them down into molecules. He described a methanolysis process that can use polyester-based feedstocks to create products without the limitations of degradation associated with mechanical recycling. Crawford also commented on the growing demand for sustainable products, saying that sustainability has shifted from "a nice to have" to "a requirement" driven by consumers, brands, and customers. He expressed excitement about repurposing innovation to "give new life to old things" and suggested that solving the global plastic waste problem may require "going back to the basics and starting again at the molecular level."