31 January 2020 - plastic pollution 3

Why do we use so much plastic? Because it is a cheap and versatile class of materials. Why is plastic cheap? Between the feedstocks and the energy used in manufacture, most of the cost is in the crude oil or natural gas inputs. Plastic is cheap because fossil fuels are cheap, and fossil fuels are cheap because we use so much. To reduce plastic usage, we need more solar panels and more electric cars with lightweight plastic parts.