If it's a plastic world, then you can probably blame LyondellBasell Industries for it. The company is the world's largest producer of polypropylene and Europe's largest maker of polyethylene, the key ingredients that go into plastics of all kinds. LyondellBasell also makes advanced polyolefins and licenses its polymer technology. The company was formed in 2000 from the combination of the polyolefin businesses of Shell and BASF; it then grew exponentially with the 2007 acquisition of Lyondell. LyondellBasell emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2010 with a new parent company, LyondellBasell Industries NV, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.