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We can still safely use fossil fuels for feedstock without burning them for the energy source. Since plastics aren't usually burned, those hydrocarbons won't ma
by akiselev 6y ago
We can still safely use fossil fuels for feedstock without burning them for the energy source. Since plastics aren't usually burned, those hydrocarbons won't make it into the atmosphere and can be neutral with a proper power source (I think the oil used for energy makes up the bulk of the oil used by the plastics industry anyway). We also can't use recycled plastic to produce an output that is higher quality than the input because the polymer chains degrade with every heating cycle during the recycling and manufacturing process, so fossil fuels will be valuable as virgin feedstock for a long time after we stop burning the rest.
- WorldMaker 6y agoSure, the implication remains however that fossil fuels will never again be as cheap to use as feedstock for plastic. That would add more pressure to better reuse/recycle plastics into secondary/tertiary/etc usage streams than the present where fossil fuels are "sort of" seen as abundant/cheap because their primary revenue stream has been so commercially viable up to this point. I don't predict new plastics and "virgin" plastics will necessarily disappear, but certainly a change in costs of oil would predicate a reevaluation to the market's love affair with new plastics.