• PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The oil in your plastics for your car aren’t being burned, so they don’t contribute nearly as much as gasoline and diesel fuels do towards climate change.

    Today is completely impossible to eliminate plastics from the global economy, so ranting about plastic use making it impossible to stop climate change is a red herring.

    Only about 10% of oil goes into plastic. We can also make bioplastics out of corn and other agricultural products.

    • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The oil to make that plastic still needs to be pumped out of the ground, refined, and manufactured into an end product. Leaving a trail of carbon emissions and other pollution along the way. It doesn’t just come out of the ground shaped into whatever you want it to be. Bioplastics made from corn are also very resource intensive to produce. While a better option, they’re not perfect either. It’s really not a red herring. Just because it isn’t polluting as an end product doesn’t mean they’re clean. And with things like toxic fumes from off gassing and the products from plastic degradation having long term consequences, it’s not like they just stop being bad as finished products either.