Remix.run Logo
paganel 5 hours ago

Also, you can't make plastics out of wind power or out of solar, you still need the "petro-" that's part of the petrochemical industry.

cluckindan 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can use solar to convert CO2 into syngas and do a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis followed by polymerization to get plastics.

zihotki 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is false, you can make many plastics without fossil sources (pla, bio-pet, bio-abs, etc). The only challenge is cost and scale - it's cheaper and easier to use existing processes.

nswango 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But making plastics using renewable energy and fossil hydrocarbons for feedstock does not exacerbate the greenhouse effect, unless you burn them when you've finished with them.

Arguably plastics are a stable, cheap and useful carbon sink and if climate is the overriding ecological priority we should be making as many as we can and recycling as few as possible.

TheOtherHobbes 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can make plastics out of cellulose, which is available from plant sources or organic (algae) bioreactors.

It would take a while to retool the plastics industry to use organic sources, but it's not at all impossible.

Zigurd 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plastic packaging can be substituted. Engineered plastics are a tiny fraction of petroleum.

jjk166 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Using renewables means you're burning up less of your plastic feedstocks.