Plastic represents everthing wrong in todays society-doesn't it?

Preaching to the choir here. Forget the pollution part of it, just the fact that some part on some machine fails cause the manufacturer cheaped out po's me to no end, especially when no repair parts are available cause its considered obsolete or considered a throw away non-repairable product. And for most of us, its not like we have the choice to buy an alternative, there simply isnt any non-plastic variation available. NO CHOICE OFFERED! Its either plastic throwaway or nothing. and if a choice is available its marketed and price pointed at wealthy yuppies.

Plastic may indeed have some important specialty uses where there is no substitute, but for most part its just way to debase and cheapen something. Its not a good long term use of resources.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I've worked my whole life in the plastics industry, and like everything else, it has its pluses and its minuses. There is a vast array of things that have been made possible with plastics, and of course, there's plenty of hard-to-get-rid-of junk. Almost all plastics are recyclable, if people would only go to the trouble, rather than just tossing everything. No thing on earth is evil in and of itself; it's what we humans do with it.

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"What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces." -John Wesley

It allows us to come together on the internet through computers. It allows us to watch tv, dvd's, vhs with our kids or to relax in the evening. It covers my JD's engine, makes it's fuel filter cheap enough to buy, creates a gasket for the carb, air filter so my engine doesn't get clogged up with the grass I'm cutting. It makes it possible to buckle up the kids in carseats, it will protect me in a crash by allowing my airbag to deploy easily. It houses the water and coffee to help me wake up in the morning, it makes it possible to talk to my family, friends and make appointments (the phone).

Plastic is something that every one of use uses and takes for granted. There's not a single person out there that does not have some sort of plastic that makes their lives easier, safer, more secure or even possible (pace maker, ventilators, IV lines, incubators, etc).

That right there says it all, in my opinion.

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Anne
Give me a sweet home set among the trees,
With friends whose words are ever kind and true.
-Phoebe Carey-

LONE PINE FARM
Barnesville, PA
Boer goats, Angora goats, Eclectic mix of poultry

I think too many put all plastics put into the same pot. There are SO MANY plastics. Plastics blended with other polymers....YOU CANNOT PUT THEM ALL IN THE SAME BASKET. THe disposable plastics are one material- plastic parts for appliances, computers are a totally different plastic.

It takes a WHOLE LOT MORE ENERGY ( non-renewable) to make things from metal than from plastic. Molding metal required very expensive materials. And if they change a part.....? Think of strip mining. You have to look at the entire picture, not just the one little end product some eco-nut decides is bad for the environment.

[QUOTE=diane5000;4354442]It's made from oil, a non-renewble resource, /QUOTE]

Actually oil IS a renewable resource--we already have several methods for obtaining oil from algae. The only thing holding that back is finding a more cost effective method of extraction. And it appears that we are closing in on that. Check out http://www.oilgae.com for lots of Algae for energy related info. Or just Google "algae for oil," or "energy from algae." BTW the only thing algae needs is water, CO2, and a little Green fertilizer.

As this relates to transpotation, personally I support and hope to soon see Plug-In Hybrids on a large scale. This could reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources dramatically.

Someday we will have hydrogen fuel cell for transportation but that may be a long way off. Plug-Hybrids can be produced and marketed now. And they do not have to be a Prius to be very effective. Depending on one's driving habits it might be necessary to keep Sta-Bil in the tank. Current technology for the batteries used in this type vehicle will get 40 miles or so. Half of Americans commute only 25 miles each day.

While I would be happy to go back to glass for drink bottles and food containers I think I selfishly want to hang on to my ever so durable and useful 5 gallon plastic buckets. And I would be frightened (even more than I already am) to be near a hospital if plastics were all removed.

Well, FarmerRob, I sure hope we can come up with another source of oil, but I can't imagine algae being able to produce the more than 20 million BARRELS of oil we burn daily in the U.S. We are energy hogs. We have to be able to go to the mall any hour of any day when we need a different color of lipstick, or to the hardware store for that one bolt we need. Or to drag our boat to the lake to catch a pound of fish.

Sooner or later, we're going to have to cut back, as Texican explained. Too bad we'll burn up all the oil so it won't be available to make plastic. Just did a google and here's an interesting chart on oil consumption by country - the U.S. dwarfs others, as of 2007. The world needs over 80 million barrels a day.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/en...il-consumption

Yes just saying it is made out of plastic and it is all bad it is not a fair statement at all.
Many plastics when mixed with other things have been very good in getting this country what the people want something disposable, and cheaper in price, then a years ago.
And I just watched a show yesterday on the Science channel that Recycling all sorts of plastics bottles and such, treating them with other chemicals and adding fiber from chopped up tires, They are now making Plastic Railroad Ties~!! Saving a bunch of trees and going green because of the recycling going on to make those railroad ties.~!
And right now I am having a glass of milk and drinking it out of a "plastic" glass.
And No, It Is Not Made in China.
Stamped Right on the Bottom Made In USA.
AND had a Rectangular recycling symbol.
And BTW I bought them at Walmart.~! So much for some saying all things at WM come from China or if not China at least "off shore"

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I wish I could still buy quality heavy duty galvanized steel buckets and tubs and such. Only stuff I see is the paper thin stuff out of Mexico. It must be for decoration only as I cant see it lasting at all. I suspect if they wanted to they could make stainless buckets and tubs for relatively reasonable price. I mean you can get large stainless bowls and stainless sinks for not horrible amount.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Metal and wood and glass things if designed well will OUTLAST plastic by wide margin. Why are we making stuff that should last a lifetime to only last a short time. Its a waste of energy to make things with an arbitrarily short life. Lets design durable goods that can be repaired and reused. Ease of repair along with durability and efficiency should all be top priorities. And for sure we Americans buy way too much stuff, much of it with a very short life so we buy too much stuff over and over.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Not all plastics are made from petroleum. Soy-based plastics is a growing field, and it will become more cost-effective as oil prices go and the technology evolves. Some of the first plastics were actually made from cellulose.

Try building a computer without the plastic used for the circuit boards or phenolic insulators. It wouldn't be easy. Same goes for any high-speed means of travel. The windows/cockpits of aircraft and high-speed trains are made of plastics.

As others have mentioned, there's a vast array of medical equipment that requires plastic, but here's one I didn't see mentioned yet - eyeglasses. They haven't been made from glass in ages. It's a godsend to people with very bad eyesight, or one eye much worse than the other, because it doesn't require the extreme thickness you need with glass to make the corrections. Then there's the field of contact lenses.

There's also one of the main selling points of plastics. It weighs next to nothing. That means a truckload of soda, detergent, whatever, is going to use a heck of a lot less fuel than if the items were packaged in any other material. The same is true in cars made lighter by using plastic parts - they get better mileage.

What about water pipes? Should we go back to using lead? Personally, I'd rather use plastic. Can you imagine what housing prices would be like if all the pipes had to be copper? There's also the issue of mining - if you get rid of plastic, you'd have to mine/manufacturer/create the replacement materials.

There's no miracle method that isn't going to have some sort of negative impact.

i've tried to cut back on plastics and disposable items over the last 3-4 years, and been much more focused on buying products that will last a long time. it can be difficult, because american industry is focused on creating an on-going dependency to keep selling new products, instead of making a single sale that will last the customer years.

i use canning jars much more for storing things in the fridge/freezer. but not everything fits, so i still use plastic. i make large batches of bagels and rolls, and store them in 1 gallon zip-lock freezer bags. i wash and reuse the bags many times until they have too many holes to work.

i buy more bulk products, which usually have reduced packaging, tho not always.

i reuse soda bottles for water instead of buying bottles of water.

--sgl

I was re-reading an article in a 1917 National Geographic by Alexander Graham Bell. In it, he predicted the end of petroleum in a very short period of time. He was wrong. Current alarmists are also wrong. In addition to plant-based oils, coal can be cracked into oil. The Germans did it in WWII and there is enough coal to last for years. Then there is the methane ice in the deep seas which could also be feedstock.

Appropriate technology and materials are the key to a lot of problems. One negative area that I think a lot of us have experienced is cracked dashboards in vehicles. That is bad use of plastics. I've also seen plastic quarter panels and bumper parts on cars that have rotted away.

OTOH, the plastic 2 liter soft drink bottles are probably one of the best pieces of engineering that I have ever seen. Spare me the "plastic is going to leach out and sterilize our children!" rhetoric and remember back to just how many times you or someone you knew got cut on broken glass from beer and soda bottles. Remember having to wear shoes at the beach and in the water because of the broken glass? We older folks tend to forget and younger folks may not have had some of the downsides of glass even occur to them. The overall damage to humans from plastic bottles is far less than from glass bottles, and the energy requirements are less than the wash, sanitize and recycle process. Besides, I can think of dozens of great projects that use empty 2 liter soda bottles.

If I can't, I can go up to the pipe plant and look at all the big cubes of crushed soda bottles they are turning into culverts.

WAIT!! I have the PERFECT solution, and it's one many of us grew up watching!!

THE FLINTSTONES!!

Did they have one scrap of plastic in their lives, of any sort? HECK NO! Their homes and cars and utensils were all made of rock, wood, hide, and sinew!! Remember how Fred and Barney made their cars go? Gasoline? Petroleum? NO! By sheer foot power! Wilma's hot little dress? Wasn't it a hide of some sort? Didn't her mother wear a big bone in her beehive? Now folks, THAT"S the answer we need---go back to the 'simple' ways. Give me a rock tumbler of Cactus Cola any day and one of those humongo racks of brontosaurus ribs or pterodactyl legs, and I'll be happy!

Seriously, two Mondays ago I was in the urgent care clinic getting treatment for extreme dehydration due to a horrible stomach virus. What did I get? A nice, sterile i.v. line and two liter bags of fluid for severe dehydration, all either made of or packaged in plastic. Got to pee in a nice sterile plastic cup, too, so they could check for other possible problems. Thought it might also be pancreatitis, so I got a shot of morphine and phenergan, both in sterile plastic syringes. I was so dehydrated my heart had started fluttering, and I was prolly near cardiac arrest. Thank goodness for plastic.

They did have sterile things before plastic. I remember back in 60s when they hung up glass bottles of solution to rehydrate people (or at least I think I remember, that was a long time ago). Just not as convenient and of course like doctors still not washing their hands enough, there is always somebody taking short cut and not doing proper job of sterializing medical instruments. Pre-packaged sterile stuff eliminates carelessness for sure. And not using glass bottles eliminates breakage. Maybe we should make pre-packaged sterialized hands for doctors since they dont wash them often enough. After all they think of themselves as demi-gods deserving mega bucks by devine right, so I suppose they dont think they need to wash up....

So lets say we let medicine and electronic circuit board people use all the plastic they want. That still leaves the vast majority of plastic that could be done away with. And plastic is in EVERYTHING anymore. You are very hard pressed to stay away from it no matter how rich you are. You would have to isolate yourself and supply all your own needs.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

If it wasn't for all the plastic in cars gas milage would be back in the low teens as well. Nice,, but plastic is here to stay and a lot of plastic is recycled so that is a good thing we are using that much plastic.

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You are forgetting the first supersonic planes used glass and metal. Just because plastic is used now doesnt mean it has to be. Its just lighter weight and cheaper at least for now.

Odd, my reading glasses are glass. Guess I must be tripping in that time machine hot tub....

Taking water out of liquid detergents lowered weight much more than plastic packaging. You could do same taking filler out of powdered products and concentrating them. Course they can be packaged in cardboard.

Cars can be designed without plastics. Look to history, the Austin Bantam was one of the smallest lightest cars ever made. Its engine was even made from sheet metal instead of being cast iron. Again plastic isnt necessary, it just makes things more profitable to manufacture at least at its current costs.

I grew up with galvanized steel plumbing. Doesnt last as long as copper, but lasts long enough to be practical. Lead pipe is silly, it was used for short time back before people knew lead was dangerous to human health. Anymore code even requires leadless solder to join copper pipe. And copper plumbing is required some places by code as is cast iron drain pipe.

And think about it, copper pipe has been around lot longer than plastic. Copper is proven long term stable. Plastic hasnt.

As to housing prices, they are simply crazy for what you get. Plastic or copper plumbing isnt going to affect total cost that much. You will pay far more to the money lenders and profit to the builders than you will for actual material costs. Cheaper materials that require less labor simply increase profit for builder. And ask yourself if any modern construction is going to hold up a century let alone many hundreds of years as some traditional housing has. Plastic disposable houses for plastic people that have to be replaced far sooner than a traditional material house that is well built.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

Nice thing about plastic now days is you can hang your wide screen TV''s on the wall, no way could you be doing that if a steel case glass screen, and all the other things that are plastic in it, no more Heavy heavy glass tv screens YEAH.
I was so surprised when I brought my 40 in HDTV home and set it right on its stand by myself, no way could I have done it if it wasn't fro plastic. Except my computer screen is a flat screen Hard Plastic not a soft one. oh well that is because it is a IMac, with all working parts inside the flat screen monitor. YEAH.

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Funny the early VWs had little plastic and driven sensibly got close to 40mpg. My 6000 pound 1984 F250 gets 13mpg. 6000 POUNDS Compact cars that get low teens are just really poorly designed or way overpowered for their size. Look on fordsix.com/forum There are those with old Falcons and Mustangs that transplant in a 5spd overdrive and go to a progressive 2bbl carb and that little carb six gets in the high 20s. Yep back in the day the same cars with cheapo 2spd automatics and not properly tuned got crappy mileage, but it wasnt because of lack of plastic in their design, it was making the car as cheap as possible to maximize profit in a time where gas mileage wasnt a huge concern.

Fact is little plastic gets recycled especially when many different kinds of plastic are used together. Not like you can grind it up and use a magnet to separate it into the various kinds. Sure you can recycle plastic when its all one kind like all milk jugs or all pop bottles. But a car uses many and varied kinds of plastic. The labor required to dismantle it into all the separate varieties would not be profitable.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I could care less about 40 inch tvs. A 17inch tube monitor for computer is fine and cant see any need for more than a 19 inch tv if I need a tv at all. I only use mine to watch the local news/weather and to play dvd movies. A 40 inch tv hanging on the wall wouldnt give me any more enjoyment. Just because something exists for sale doesnt mean I need to buy one nor does it mean that it would improve my life. It just means somebody had an idea and is trying to talk people into giving him their money.

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman