Plastic
Plastic
Almost all plastics are made from crude oil. The oil is extracted from under the ground (often under the ground under the sea)
Plastic
The oil is transported by tanker or in a pipeline (the countries which export the most oil are still in the Middle East).
Plastic
They do very little manufacturing so the oil goes off to other countries to be processed and used.
Plastic
Sometimes it is made into components which are sold and transported to another factory for assembly into a final product.
Plastic
As well as producing Greenhouse Gases, there can be a lot of other pollution caused when plastics are produced.
Plastic
The plastic is made from a fossil fuel and it still contains the carbon that was absorbed all those millions of years ago before those fossil fuels were formed.
Plastic
The carbon will stay there until we destroy the plastic. If the object itself or the scraps are thrown away they will end up in a landfill site where they will stay a very long time before the plastic decays and releases the carbon.
Recycling Plastic
What about recycling plastic? Does that help to reduce climate change?
Plastic
An object made from recycled plastic does use less energy to make than one from new plastic but not much less and other pollution is caused in the production both times. photo Paul Birnstihl
Recycling Plastic
Sometimes a lot of energy and resources are used to make one useless plastic object and then a lot of energy and resources are used to turn it into another useless object.
Carbon Footprint
Plastics made from oil produce 2.5Kg of CO2 per Kg of plastic.
Plastic
A different but important issue is that fossil fuels are finite. They will run out one day.
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Chemicals made from oil are used in some medicines and hospital equipment and exciting things like windsurfers, tennis rackets and computers.
Plastic
Do we really want to use it all up making plastic gnomes?