To heap one more disappointment on this sad state of affairs, you may learn (as I did not so long ago) that your recycle bin may often end up getting dumped in the same hole as your trash. Apparently the less-developed world has become weary of accepting our "recyclable" waste, which means that our local collection authorities no longer have anywhere else to put it. So all that effort you put into separating it from your trash may be to no avail.
I remember trolling around for empties as a kid, when we hoped to turn them in for the deposit and buy some candy or something. Then came a brief period where the glass was made thinner and was no longer returnable, before plastic burst on the scene.
Someone I met once who worked in the custom plastic manufacturing business told me that the stuff that goes into plastic used to be considered a waste product, much like gasoline was in the early days of the oil industry.
I have tried to avoid buying anything in plastic packaging whenever I can now, especially food. But it's a challenge. At least there is a local dairy that still sells its product in returnable glass.
The idea is quite simple : using plastic (either new one or recycled, it ultimately actually make no difference) can only lead to the dispersion of microparticles and gaseous pollutants. So until we manage to really reduce the quantity produced (if ever it's possible), the best way is to concentrate the stuff as much as we can by burying it in controlled landfills...
Ugo, you already know this. It's for the benefit of your readers.
In the US, most plastic feedstocks are either separated from our NGL-rich natural gas, with ethane being the most widely used one. Ethane is cracked into ethylene, which is polymerized into various grades of polyethylene. It is also used as a feedstock for ethylene glycol, one of the main feedstocks for vinyl chloride and production of other industrial chemicals.
Ethylene is also a product of oil refining. Steam cracking of heavier hydrocarbons produces it, where it can be reincorporated into the fuel refining stream or used for the above purposes. I would have to learn some oil refining history to understand how it was originally utilized, but I have a feeling that availability of otherwise unusable ethylene was one of the major factors that gave birth to the plastics industry we have today. Remember, gasoline/petrol was originally a waste byproduct of early oil refining (it was flared in pits and even [gasp] dumped into rivers), where kerosene and heating oil were the main valuable products. Daimler and Ford came to the rescue!
Methane can be used to synthesize polyethylene via methanol synthesis, then a secondary process called MTO (methanol-to-olefins). I think this is the polluting, energy-intensive end process Ugo referred to, which starts with recycled plastics, from which methanol can be derived. I'm not a chemist, but after reading this, the whole business sounds like an act of desperation to me.
Methanol derived from natural gas or coal could also be used for an MTO process, but that seems like a terribly inefficient process to me. Or perhaps it's already in widespread use. I'll leave that one to the chemists.
To heap one more disappointment on this sad state of affairs, you may learn (as I did not so long ago) that your recycle bin may often end up getting dumped in the same hole as your trash. Apparently the less-developed world has become weary of accepting our "recyclable" waste, which means that our local collection authorities no longer have anywhere else to put it. So all that effort you put into separating it from your trash may be to no avail.
I remember trolling around for empties as a kid, when we hoped to turn them in for the deposit and buy some candy or something. Then came a brief period where the glass was made thinner and was no longer returnable, before plastic burst on the scene.
Someone I met once who worked in the custom plastic manufacturing business told me that the stuff that goes into plastic used to be considered a waste product, much like gasoline was in the early days of the oil industry.
I have tried to avoid buying anything in plastic packaging whenever I can now, especially food. But it's a challenge. At least there is a local dairy that still sells its product in returnable glass.
An other recent article on the same subject : https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-circular-lie-why-we-should-ban
The idea is quite simple : using plastic (either new one or recycled, it ultimately actually make no difference) can only lead to the dispersion of microparticles and gaseous pollutants. So until we manage to really reduce the quantity produced (if ever it's possible), the best way is to concentrate the stuff as much as we can by burying it in controlled landfills...
Ugo, you already know this. It's for the benefit of your readers.
In the US, most plastic feedstocks are either separated from our NGL-rich natural gas, with ethane being the most widely used one. Ethane is cracked into ethylene, which is polymerized into various grades of polyethylene. It is also used as a feedstock for ethylene glycol, one of the main feedstocks for vinyl chloride and production of other industrial chemicals.
Ethylene is also a product of oil refining. Steam cracking of heavier hydrocarbons produces it, where it can be reincorporated into the fuel refining stream or used for the above purposes. I would have to learn some oil refining history to understand how it was originally utilized, but I have a feeling that availability of otherwise unusable ethylene was one of the major factors that gave birth to the plastics industry we have today. Remember, gasoline/petrol was originally a waste byproduct of early oil refining (it was flared in pits and even [gasp] dumped into rivers), where kerosene and heating oil were the main valuable products. Daimler and Ford came to the rescue!
Methane can be used to synthesize polyethylene via methanol synthesis, then a secondary process called MTO (methanol-to-olefins). I think this is the polluting, energy-intensive end process Ugo referred to, which starts with recycled plastics, from which methanol can be derived. I'm not a chemist, but after reading this, the whole business sounds like an act of desperation to me.
https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0391/1/1/15
https://www.cetjournal.it/index.php/cet/article/view/CET25117106
Methanol derived from natural gas or coal could also be used for an MTO process, but that seems like a terribly inefficient process to me. Or perhaps it's already in widespread use. I'll leave that one to the chemists.
Yes, the story is complicated, but methane (natural gas) is the source of most plastics