![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"I have just one word for you. Plastics."
People keep talking about peak oil, that sometime, maybe soon, maybe a few years down the road we will find that the cost of getting oil will increase sharply as we run out of easy to recover fuel. Everytime I hear about it it's always mentioned along with the price of gas. Even so, I think there's one other cost to us that they don't mention...plastics.
I remember when I was a kid, most of my early toys were made out of wood. I had wooden blocks and wooden fisher price toys that might have some plastic accents. It was only later when we get into GI Joes (the ones that could mess Ken's shit up, not the small ones) and eventually Star Wars action figures where toys really became plastic, so that was in the mid to late 70's.
Heck, my first computer was a metal-framed Commodore PET. My Atari 2600 was the first plastic coated silicon chip box I owned, and that even has faux wood paneling stickers on it because people weren't used to seeing an all plastic box next to their console television.
In the last ten years glass bottles have been put on the endangered species list. It's odd since there's so much more sand available for glass than there is oil, so we're told. When the price of oil jumps, will we go back to having ketchup in glass?
While there's a growing number of experiments being put on the road to deal with the loss of gasoline, more fuel efficient cars, bio diesel and ethanol, hybrid and electric and eventually fuel cells, has someone been making plastics out of corn?
Unlike wooden blocks, the plastic ones don't have the tough edges that hurt when you fall down on them...well, i take that back. Legos do.
What isn't made out of plastic these days? Will the price of packaging for these items increase as well with the end of peak oil?
Damn, I'm to tired from being out in a pool all day (with plastic rafts and floats) to make any sense tonight.
I remember when I was a kid, most of my early toys were made out of wood. I had wooden blocks and wooden fisher price toys that might have some plastic accents. It was only later when we get into GI Joes (the ones that could mess Ken's shit up, not the small ones) and eventually Star Wars action figures where toys really became plastic, so that was in the mid to late 70's.
Heck, my first computer was a metal-framed Commodore PET. My Atari 2600 was the first plastic coated silicon chip box I owned, and that even has faux wood paneling stickers on it because people weren't used to seeing an all plastic box next to their console television.
In the last ten years glass bottles have been put on the endangered species list. It's odd since there's so much more sand available for glass than there is oil, so we're told. When the price of oil jumps, will we go back to having ketchup in glass?
While there's a growing number of experiments being put on the road to deal with the loss of gasoline, more fuel efficient cars, bio diesel and ethanol, hybrid and electric and eventually fuel cells, has someone been making plastics out of corn?
Unlike wooden blocks, the plastic ones don't have the tough edges that hurt when you fall down on them...well, i take that back. Legos do.
What isn't made out of plastic these days? Will the price of packaging for these items increase as well with the end of peak oil?
Damn, I'm to tired from being out in a pool all day (with plastic rafts and floats) to make any sense tonight.
no subject
How many of the non-petroleum items that we use are manufactured in a machine that runs off of some sort of natural gas fuel.
and of course as you've said, what about the plastics.
I don't think people realize just how seriously dependent we are on natural fuels. People only think about vehicles...
no subject
The US is losing manufacturing jobs all the time simply on the cost of labor. The rising price of oil and energy may really kill it off.
no subject
the cost of food will rise
really, I can't think of anything that won't incur a rise in prices.
no subject
no subject
Yes, Fertilizer is another issue, but it may be better if we do less with fertilizers, as a lot of that material runs off into the rivers and lakes. That may be an OK trade off if we can still work on producing food crops that need less of the stuff.
That brings up the question of bio-fuels. How much corn that we grow goes to feeding people, feeding animals, and into fuel? I've heard several complaints that we don't use what we have to feed the hungry, and now we're going to divert crops for fuel production. Which is the ethical thing to do?
no subject
no subject
Don't worry, I know a world without plastic bags as well.