So, what do we do about plastics?

[midnight armadillo]

Plastics are largely derived from petroleum. Modern life would be unimaginable without them...certainly fields such as modern medicine could not even exist without a staggering array of plastics.

So, as we stagger, stumble, and blindly fumble towards the end of the oil era in the next hundred years, what can be done to reuse, recycle, and create plastics that doesn't require oil? Does anyone have any thoughts or links on this?

[Mountainman]

1. If oil were not used for fuel maybe there would be oil for plastics

I think that soy beans are used to make some plastics also.

[LynzM]

2. I've heard that....

There are some vegetable-based materials that may replace some types of plastic? But I don't have any specific material on that.

I do agree that people don't see beyond the gas and heating aspects of a decline in petroleum. Shipping, storage, indeed HUGE parts of our daily lives are totally dependant on plastics at this point. Makes one hope that the chemical engineers are busy coming up with a more renewable alternative, for sure :scared:

[prodigal_green]

5. casein is made

from milk fat. I have the best knitting needles made from it.

[ott]

3. Recycling waste into oil

Is this the ultimate recycler?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,960689,00.html

<snip>

Trials at the Philadelphia pilot project have given the engineers a good idea of what different feedstocks would produce. For instance, a 175lb (79kg) man could, theoretically, yield 38lb of oil, 7lb of gas, 7lb of minerals and carbon and 123lb of sterilised water. More practically, 100lb (45kg) of sewage becomes 26lb (11kg) of oil, 9lb of gas, 8lb of minerals and carbon and 57lb of water. Medical waste, generally regard as tricky to dispose of, is particularly valuable - its equivalent yields are 65, 10, 5 and 20.

</snip>

[whistle]

4. Go back to using the materials we used before plastics came...

...in: paper cups, ceramic tile counter tops, natural fibers, reusable glass bottles, cellophane (made from wood), etc. Plastics were developed from the chemical industry eager to find profitable uses for cheap petroleum. Now that petroleum will no longer be cheap and is in fact exhaustible, that intellectual energy can be re-channeled into safer and inexhaustible materials. I see plastics still being discarded in landfills, perhaps more of that material can be recycled then what we currently do.

[ott]

6. Oh.....

... what can be done to reuse, recycle, and create plastics that doesn't require oil?

By all means, reuse and recycle; plastics, metals, paper. Compost. Garden. Dispose of used batteries and old electronics properly. Use public transportation or carpool. Check the air pressure on your tires, get your oil changed, change your air filter: regularly. Eat less meat! Save up for a hybrid, (it'll pay for itself). Switch to fluorescent or LED light bulbs, (takes a lot of gas to mine coal). Fill plastic bottles with water and use them to fill empty freezer space. Open windows and turn off central air on nice days. Wash clothes with cold water. Buy less plastic crap, (product packaging, fast food, 'fast' coffee). Buy in bulk. Buy locally.

More: Go here: http://www.earth911.org

And plastics are oil, but so is canola.

[WildClarySage]

7. Hubby works for DuPont

in polymers and he is involved in some projects that are trying to develop new plastics sources that don't rely on petrolium products. They are also making changes in their processes that eliminate waste. It ain't perfect, but I'm glad they're working on the problem and I'm proud that my dh is working on solutions.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. In the good old days ...

Plastics were made from:
1. Coke oven gas (destructive distillation of coal) - major industry when there was a market for metallurgical coal ("coke" ).
2. Various and sundry vegetable oils.
Especially carbohydrates, sugars; proteins are too valuable to waste on plastics.
3. By products of slaughtering.

It is not a technological problem. It is an "economic" or "substitution" problem.

[Township75]

9. That is a big field to cover in one post...

but I will give some broad responses to some of your questions.

Plastics are largely derived from petroleum, but also coal and natural gas. Since there is a finite amount of these materials available, their prices will drastically increase, much like we experienced (and still are) with oil over the summer. This will be the driving force for development of alternative feed stocks to make plastics. This is already occurring for many soybean based products. While these materials have been available for sometime, they were never economically competitive with their petroleum counterparts. But this economic incentive to stick with petroleum has diminished over the last few years.

Soy based and corn based plastics are being used in the paneling of John Deer combines and balers today. Some of these pieces of equipment use 370 lbs of soy-based resin. These materials are not entirely free of petroleum, as usually a mix of the two are used. Henry Ford researched using soy based materials for car parts back in 1941, and Ford is currently researching this topic again. Some topic they are looking at are soy based lubricants, oils, and polyurethane foams (seat cushions). There are others as well. I can't recall the name of the company, but there is a company that intends to sell plastic cups made from corn. They will only be sold in select markets such as Boulder and Portland where consumers are willing to pay a higher price for a more environmentally favorable product.

Additionally, governments are pushing renewable resources more than before. In 2002, congress passed the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act which requires all govt agencies to give preference to biobased products provided they meet performance standards and are "reasonably priced." Fuels and electricity are excluded from this act. In Europe, an act called the End of Life Vehicle Mandate which requires recycleability of 80% of the materials in a vehicle by 2006, or face monetary penalties. There is still some confusion on what will be counted as recycleability, for example, do parts made from renewable resources count?

Finally, to add to the economic incentives, the US is the largest producer of soy beans in the world, and soybean oil is the cheapest of the natural oils (e.g. corn oil). So, in short, I presented all of this to show there is a growing economic incentive to switch to renewables, as well as a small market already which helps lower the cost, and pushes R&D in this area.

As far as recycling plastics, this is not an easy thing to do. It is thermodynamically and practically very difficult to recycle plastics. If you have done any research on this, you likely now that plastics MUST be separated from each other to be recycled, for example polyethylene (PE) can not be mixed with polystyrene (PS), even in small amounts, and be recycled. If you want the science behind it, find a book on polymer science and look up Flory-Huggins Theory which basically states polymers don't mix because of repulsive forces and minuscule entropy of mixing values. Often polymers that are recycled, are really just cut up into small pieces and reused as a filler in pavement for a road or some other product. Economically, it is often more expensive for a company to recycle a polymer than to make a new one.

In addition to cost, the largest hurdle tends to be performance for these new materials. Often the natural-based products perform more poorly than their synthetic counterparts. If researchers could develop competitive natural products without sacrificing cost, we would be much closer to getting off of oil.

I'd like to write more, but I really need to get to bed. As a side note, this movement isn't limited to vegetable oils....chicken feathers have been used to make motherboards, and flower petals are being considered as a feed stock as well.

If you want some references, just PM me and I will send you some.

[OrwellwasRight]

13. What about just plain ol' generic re-using?

Most plastics that get thrown away (or dropped in a recycle bin, if one is available) have not exhausted their useful lives.

There is exactly ZERO reason that our shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and soda bottles need to be melted into something else to be useful again.

Why don't stores just have big vats of products that we put into our own containers? We could use one shampoo bottle for our entire lives.

I remember when I was a little kid, we acutally kept peanut butter and jelly jar and used them as drinking glasses. We kept plastic shakers from Comet and plastic tubs from Chiffon margarine and used them as toys to play in the dirt. (I also wore hand-me down clothes from my sister, btw.)

In just thirty years, we have become a society that has forgotten completely how to re-use. Everything has to be new. WTF?

[Nihil]

14. Commercial pressure supported by "appropriate" panic stories

The basic reason is that all the producers and suppliers are geared up
to sell you a new XYZ (and specifically their brand of XYZ).

There is no incentive for them to reuse.
There is no capability to support them doing it.

Their entire operation is set up for the sole purpose of obtaining
raw materials at the lowest financial cost (regardless of human or
environmental cost), process the materials into their product at the
lowest financial cost (regardless of human or environmental cost),
transport it to the distribution points at the lowest financial cost
(regardless etc.) and persuade you, the consumer, to buy it at the
highest price they can get.

They will not take back empty shampoo bottles to refill them as this
would require collection, transport, cleaning, and integration into
the filling system. All of this will add a financial cost (not to
mention logistical & operational complexity) for no financial gain.
As a result, they will simply not do it.

The only places that will do the "re-use this bottle" approach are
things that haven't been shipped off-shore, processes that are still
fairly local. That's why milk bottles are collected, cleaned and
re-filled (but supermarkets don't like them as it costs more to ship
a bottle than a plastic-coated carton and they don't pack as well).
That's why beer and soft drink bottles used to have "deposits" on the
bottle to encourage return and re-use (but now soft drinks come in
plastic or cans - shipped in from abroad in most cases - and beer
(or at least the fizzy crap from the multinational lager producers)
again comes in cans or imported from abroad). The capability to
re-use the container no longer exists.

The fact that it saves the planet doesn't register with the directors.
Their focus is purely and simply on their personal income stream.

They can justify their position by sponsoring "research" to spread
panic stories about the health risks of re-using a bottle, drive the
"must be sparkling new to be worth the money" expectations of the
image-saturated public and simply point to the frightful cost of
changing their business (back) to accommodate such a model.

Mind you, most of the public are too ignorant to notice anyway.

The fact that there is nothing objective to choose between fifty
brands of the same product (excepting the price/dilution trade-off)
seems to have escaped the under-stretched mental capabilities of
the "common herd". That's why the cities have so many paid liars
working in the advertising/marketing departments: To tell the dumb
TV-addicted consumer how to spend his/her money this week but still
make them feel that they are smart, discerning individuals.

Nihil

[Township75]

15. If the demand is there, it will happen...

just like many people refill a coffee mug rather than get a new styrofoam one.

This is where I think Walmart could help us. They will do anything for a dollar, so in places like OR, CA or Boulder, CO where there is a enviro-friendly consumer, demand for "refills" rather than new products would motivate Walmart to have a "refill" station in there store. It would take some work by the people of those areas, but I think it would work.

[OrwellwasRight]

16. How would one "demand" a refill?

I know that places like whole foods, for instance, sell cereal in vats, but i have not seen it put into practice for other products.

Maybe if we just left an empty bottle on the shelf for every bottle we are forced to buy?

[RafterMan]

10. Plant-based polymers

and TDP.

Oh, and elephant tusks.

Don't worry about plastics.

[NNadir]

11. "Plastics" are not just one type of compound. They represent

literally hundreds of thousands, if not more, types of compounds.

Thus they all have varying properties and there is, unfortunately, no real "one size fits all," solution to the problem of their disposal, degradation, or recycling.

The term "plastic" was originally meant to convey materials that were easily molded, and fairly pliable, but in modern usuage the word plastic has subsumed both thermoplastics and room temperature plastic to mean, in general, polymers.

A great many "plastics" have never been derived from oil.

One of the original plastics, or polymers, in commercial production was cellophane, which is not petroleum derived but is generally derived from wood based cellulose. Nitrocellulose, which is still a subject of huge commercial production, was originally used in the first shatterproof glass, which was ordinary glass coated with nitrocellulose. (It was discovered serendiptiously when a French chemist dropped a flask in which he was doing a nitration and it failed to shatter.) Nitrocellulose today is used widely in paints and many other products.

Many polymers are not derived from oil at all, but are products of natural gas. Included in these polymers are the familiar polyethylenes, polypropylenes, and PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Vinyl chloride is made by the chlorination of ethylene. It can also be made from the addition of hydrochloric acid to acetylene.

Acetylene can be made by heating carbon, usually derived from coal or coke, but biologically derived "cokes" are also available, and heating it with metallic calcium. The addition of water to the resulting calcium carbide was once considered a useful laboratory preparation for acetylene. (Now, of course, one just orders a tank of acetylene and a regulator.) PEG's, polyethylene glycols, can be made from natural gas or acetylene as well, through an intermediate known as ethylene oxide (oxirane). Glycidol, closely related to propylene oxide can be made from glycerol, which is a byproduct of the manufacture of soap and biodiesel. I can certainly imagine scenarios wherein, at the right price, glycidol could be converted to propylene oxide.

Nylons are polymers of a diacid, like adipic acid, and diamines. Adipic acid is potentially derived from catechol, which is itself a wood byproduct from lignin processing.

Polyester is a product very much like nylon, except the diamine is replaced with a diol, a molecule having two alcohol functional groups.

Almost all monomers in common plastics today are theoretically available from syn gas, which is just carbon monoxide and hydrogen. One needs only the energy to make syn gas, which can, as is well known be made by the direct hydrogenation of carbon dioxide, again, if the price is right.

The problem of what to do with plastics once they've been formed is a more serious problem than making plastics. Many plastics, including PVC, were in huge scale industrial production before their long term stability, decomposition and manufacturing intermediates were evaluated for toxicity and environmental impact. It turns out, for instance, that vinyl chloride, the monomer used for the manufacture of PVC, is one of a very potent carcinogen.

It was once thought that plastics were essentially immortal, but this has proved not to be the case, as collectors of 1950's Mattel toys like Barbie dolls have found out. Over time plastics can and do corrode, especially when exposed to air pollutants like ozone and nitrogen dioxide.

Often plastics contain tiny amounts of plasticizers and flame retardants that create huge toxicology problems. An article in yesterday's New Times Magazine described how the flame retardant commonly used in polyurethanes, which are derived from natural gas derived isocyanates and diols, PBDE, polybrominated diphenyl ether, is now found in almost all human breast milk, especially breast milk in the United States. Although the article leaned towards some typical mass media scare mongering, I certainly would not argue that the concern is entirely bogus, not at all. PBDE is certainly isosteric with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) which have been justifiably banned on grounds of environmental persistance and carcinogenicity. The article noted that PBDE is also isosteric with the important hormone thyroxin, an important moderator of metabolism in humans and every other mammalian species.

Also the mechanical persistance of polymers causes a great many problems for wildlife. Turtles, fish, and many other animals are maimed and disabled by things like the plastic holders that bind six packs of beer and soda together. Animals ingest plastics and are often killed or injured in the process. Our own Hatrack often posts threads touching on matters like these.

All of my environmental beliefs and dreams center on recycling, and plastics are no exception. It is sometimes dubious, when one considers the energetic cost of transport, for instance, to transport plastics for these purposes, but I believe that an intelligent recycling of many (though certainly not all) plastics can be managed by appropriate siting and energy management. Some of the cycles I would imagine would involve what is sometimes called "thermal depolymerization" by folks here, but my personal favorite catch-all for dealing with both problematic and not so problematic carbon compounds is supercritical water oxidation (SCWO). SCWO of plastic is a potential source of syn gas. SCWO and syn gas are my panacea responses to almost anything, although I'm not so sure, again, that "one size fits all." I'll go further. I'm sure that on some grounds, I'm engaging is over-enthusiatic hand waving and wide eyed optimism.

In any case, SCWO requires significant amounts of energy. I'm comfortable obtaining that energy from nuclear sources, but, even if this is less and less the case, nuclear energy is still something of a hard sell among the less well educated population.

No matter. Certainly it is true that whatever the problematic nature of plastic is, it does manage to sequester considerable amounts of carbon. I think I posted a link here not so long ago, which didn't draw much attention, to a Chemical and Engineering News article indicating that there are a 100's of billions of metric tons of PVC that is now approaching the end of its useful life. While the material has become broken, and brittle or simply fallen into disuse, for the most part the carbon it contains has not been injected into the atmosphere. I'm not sure we'd know what to do if it was.

[Xithras]

12. Plastics for medical use have a few hundred years yet.

The use of oil as a fuel and fertilizer, and as the main ingredient in plastic for inexpensive consumer goods requires oil to remain cheap in order to be economically viable, but the manufacture of plastics for medical devices are a different story. Most people put no limit on the value of their lives, and they'll willingly pay the increased costs required to have these devices manufactured.

Remember, there are thousands of wells stretching from California to Oklahoma to Texas and Pennsylvania that have oil at their bottoms, but which sit capped and unused because extracting oil from them isn't profitable (reserves are too small, extraction techniques are too expensive compared to the returns). When the Middle Eastern wells dry up, oil will become a "price is no object" commodity for certain specialty fields and they will once again be activated. It's unlikely that they'll be used for fuel because you'd be paying in excess of $20 a gallon for refined gasoline pulled from some of them, but they'll certainly find use in fertilizers for some high value crops, lubricants, and certain essential plastics.