3 ms·

There's not enough cork, nor will there ever be, to make a meaningful dent in total plastic consumption (in current terms). We produce 380M tons of plastic per

There's not enough cork, nor will there ever be, to make a meaningful dent in total plastic consumption (in current terms). We produce 380M tons of plastic per year. IIUC, that's about the size of the entire lumber industry - of which cork is a very small insignificant percentage. Cork has a very small part of the planet where it grows well, and basically everything else valuable grows well there, too... The Nanocrystalline Cellulose market will be bigger than cork by 2030 probably - and even that is 25 years away from making a real dent in plastic consumption (aggressively).

TotempaaltJ 3y ago
To be fair, we don't need it to overtake, or even come close to, the entire plastic industry. It'd already be nice if it, and other sustainable materials, could chip away at different uses of petroplastics.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  My point is that Cork is so laughably far away from making a meaningful dent. It's orders of magnitude away from even taking out 1%.
  - klipt 3y ago
    Would be nice if we could invent a way to produce and 3D print cork in factories.
    - mc32 3y ago
      Like artificial “meats” there’s going to be a lot of artificial things in “printing” “cork” plain old plastics might be better.
    - davkan 3y ago
      I don’t know about printing but there’s various methods for liquifying and expanding cork. E.g. spray cork insulation and moldable cork ski boot liners.
wolverine876 3y ago
> We produce 380M tons of plastic per year. IIUC, that's about the size of the entire lumber industry - of which cork is a very small insignificant percentage. Any material looking to fulfill that demand will start from that position; why would anyone be producing the material if they didn't already have that market? Every new thing starts from zero; plastics were at zero too, at one time.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  Cork has been in use by humans for 10,000 years... It's not a new market.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    That confuses the market with the product. Oil has been used for a long time too, but the modern oil market didn't exist until the last ~~150 years. If cork became a substitute for plastics, that would be a new market.

TotempaaltJ 3y ago

To be fair, we don't need it to overtake, or even come close to, the entire plastic industry. It'd already be nice if it, and other sustainable materials, could chip away at different uses of petroplastics.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
My point is that Cork is so laughably far away from making a meaningful dent. It's orders of magnitude away from even taking out 1%.
- klipt 3y ago
  Would be nice if we could invent a way to produce and 3D print cork in factories.
  - mc32 3y ago
    Like artificial “meats” there’s going to be a lot of artificial things in “printing” “cork” plain old plastics might be better.
  - davkan 3y ago
    I don’t know about printing but there’s various methods for liquifying and expanding cork. E.g. spray cork insulation and moldable cork ski boot liners.

wolverine876 3y ago

> We produce 380M tons of plastic per year. IIUC, that's about the size of the entire lumber industry - of which cork is a very small insignificant percentage. Any material looking to fulfill that demand will start from that position; why would anyone be producing the material if they didn't already have that market? Every new thing starts from zero; plastics were at zero too, at one time.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
Cork has been in use by humans for 10,000 years... It's not a new market.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  That confuses the market with the product. Oil has been used for a long time too, but the modern oil market didn't exist until the last ~~150 years. If cork became a substitute for plastics, that would be a new market.