[JudoCow09]

I wasn't sure where to put this topic so moderetors feel free to move it, but I was wondering if anyone had thought about alternatives to plastic. I mean not only is oil our main source of energy, but it's our main source of cheap durable material we know of as plastics. So even if there was a way to do without oil, how would we survive without plastics?

I found this website but once again, it has the same limitations as others. All these things require land space, and oil didn't.

Bioplastics

[Heineken]

Wood, baby. Think 18th century. Spoons and boxes and clothes racks and on and on, all made of wood. We're going back to wood, with a smattering of base metals. Of course, there is only so much wood to go around . . . but the population will be much lower.

[RonMN]

There are a few things we can do to conserve plastics...bring your own canvas bags to the grocery store rather than using their plastic ones. Re-usable glass bottles for milk or other drinks (with a deposit). Stuff like that should help out short term but we'll just have to get along without it eventually.

[GoIllini]

The fischer-tropsch process only needs CO and H2 to make oil. Current plans involve using coal, but theoretically, we could make the CO and H2 using electricity, atmospheric CO2, and water.

It would take a heckuvalotta energy, be horribly inefficient and a thermodynamic crime, and maybe cost a couple hundred dollars per barrel. And of course, nobody but the richest of the rich who wanted to take out their classic Studebakers or Corvettes would want to use it to run their cars- since gasoline from it would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-$50/gallon.

But if we had nuclear energy, atmospheric CO2, and water, we could still make oil- and feedstock for plastics.

So we could still make the stuff that absolutely, positively had to be made out of plastic- but plastic might cost ten times as much.

[whiteknight]

Tons of the stuff are burried in landfills. Just setting there ready to recycle into useful stuff. All you need are peole to did it up and sort it out.

[OldSprocket]

There are lots of alternatives to plastics. There are, however different materials suitable to different tasks. Glass, leather, wood, basketry, pottery, canvas, waxed canvas, latex, etc.

Are you looking for a single material that will replace all the various types of plastic?

[JudoCow09]

It's just I sit here and look at my computer with its plastic front and plastic fans, and there's these plastic cups, and plastic keyboard, plastic cases. Could we really replace all of these things?