Replies to post #24154 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

I’m all for substitutes for single use plastics but substituting cellulosic materials for hydrocarbons to make same products is counterproductive.

a few years ago people were harvesting corn stalks for some climate related scheme. As soon as subsidies went away, corn stalks went back to getting plowed under.

Algae sounds great but has many problems in practical, large scale operation - regardless of the end product.

I don’t think penalizing or subsidizing product sources will cure the problems. If single use plastics are a problem, which I agree, then ban those products. Start w the flimsy plastic bags ubiquitous to grocery stores. Last time I was in rural Mexico, every tree line was covered w those bags. That’s not just ugly. I can’t imagine any more underdeveloped country is better.

Make or incentivize people to reuse bags/containers. When I was a wee human people commonly bought milk in glass bottles that were reused. Glass is more expensive in more than just $ to produce but it can be reused. Same for aluminum. Recycling plastics is a loser proposition.

I think people that want hydrocarbons to go away or believe they can be done without are somewhere between stupid and naive. As the oil company that NorthFace dis’d pointed out, every clothing product NorthFace sells is made at least partially w hydrocarbons. A 2 second look around you or on yourself will reveal several pounds/tons of hydrocarbon products. Anyone that thinks they can live comfortably without those things is very comfortable gathering wood, rubbing sticks together, and braiding leaves.

[OakesCS]

1 more rant. Somewhere in this thread is mention of polyhydroxyalkanoates as biodegradable plastic substitute. Marvelous for high margin plastics but the process of making involves similar processes to those that created petroleum. The obvious difference is that the petroleum generation didn’t require human investments in capital infrastructure, microbial care, and relatively small scale material extraction and purification. Hard to compete with what millions of years of Mother Nature did for free. The throughput can’t compete w demand and what passes through a refinery. In the absence of significant cultural changes wrt reuse, what is needed are biodegradable materials that can substitute, cost effectively, for bulk, single use plastics like those used in grocery bags and milk jugs. The mass of those continuously produced materials is enormous.