Spring Studio

A Civilisation ruled by Plastics

Since the extraction, refinement, temporary storage and end use of oil derived products is a continuous flow from the large scale point of view and the long term storage of any fraction of the products is costly, dangerous and unpopular, it is clear that the demand for any particular refined fraction of crude oil must be balanced by concurrent consumption of all the other fractions.

The fractions to which I refer are, in a simplified list from lighter to heavier.

In the past fifty years since the widespread and ever increasing use of plastics has transformed human life, the demand for the plastisiable components of crude oil has increased continuously.

Today not only are nearly all consumables packed in at least one, sometimes three or four layers of different plastics, but most clothes, shoes, cars, electronic equipment, white goods etc contain increasing amounts of plastics and almost no truly recyclable components.

The demand for new plastics is accelerating.

So when as consciously motivated conservationists we wonder why the great oil consuming governments of USA, Australia and Europe continue to offer tax incentives for gas guzzling monster cars, and why air travel is so cheap despite its obvious environmental impact, and why we are told we must each plan to use twice as much energy by 2020 as we do now, despite the ever increasing efficiency of everything we use – maybe the answer is really simple, so simple we stare at it every day without recognition. It’s all driven by our use of plastics.

Despite having worked in the plastics industry for over twenty years, I am still amazed at the properties and possibilities of this hugely complex family of materials. About ten years ago, I made a floating island in a dam for wood ducks to nest on and have their young without fear of foxes. The PET bottles still float merrily on the water despite ten long years in harsh UV – laden Australian sunshine, a product designed to be used once for a day and thrown away. I can only guess how long this remarkably tough material will last under ground when buried in landfill.

The wholesale cost of plastic feedstock is much greater, weight – weight, than the equivalent in combustible fuel. For example, gramophone – record vinyl currently (2007) costs about A$5/KG, and that is 30% filler, so the plastic cost of this low – grade material is around A$7.50/KG compared to A$3/KG for gasoline. Pure polyethylene is used in the food industry, is many times the price of an equivalent weight in fuel.

So we can see the rural profit in the petrochemical industry these days is in the by-products. No wonder alternative packaging is so hard to promote on a large scale.

For example, chitin from prawn shells, 70,000 tons of which is dumped annually from one factory in Japan has been used to make a completely biodegradable packaging material with a tensile strength several times that of polyethylene.

I would ultimately question whether indeed the manipulation of vehicle and aircraft fuel use is a deliberate act. SUV's are subsidised as we are facing steady rises on fuel costs. Perhaps we might be generous and assume in this case the right hand really doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. And also that successive governments are forced into ultimately unsustainable positions by the relatively permanent and all pervading oil industry-the dominant economic force on this planet.

If we all drove electric wind charged or tidal powered vehicles the oil industry would have to find some other way of disposing of the fuel we saved. Unless we could find some way of reducing our need for new plastic feedstock. Using green bags is good, but not enough to make any real difference.

The average yield of feedstock for the plastics industry from crude oil is around 16 per cent.

The cost of storing refined fuel is so high that in most cities the available storage areas are already used to capacity. Public awareness of these facilities is usually high and the perception of necessary risk and danger is balanced by the acceptance of the necessity of providing efficient re-distribution of fuel to the majority users. Thus it is difficult to imagine being easily able to increase short term storage capacity.

At any moment, the amount of refined fuel, solvents and other by- products from crude oil in storage is sufficient for 3-6 weeks use. We have been living on the knife edge for a long time. Isn’t it time we examined our dependencies openly and honestly and had a rigorous public debate fuelled by the best information we can demand from all those who control the life blood of our civilization?