Destruction, Energy Usage and Leakage
Plastics production begins with extracting oil, natural gas or coal, which involves the defiling of vast areas of land, both above and below the surface, as well as rivers, lakes and atmosphere. Great quantities of toxic substances are pumped into the ground during extraction. And great quantities of fuels are consumed transporting raw resources via truck, train and pipelines to processing facilities, themselves releasing greenhouse gasses. Oil and gas extraction and wastewater disposal from oil and gas has caused many earthquakes.
Beginning in 2009, Oklahoma experienced a surge in earthquakes. The largest earthquake known to be induced by fluid wastewater disposal from oil and gas production was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake on September 23, 2016, in central Oklahoma. Four magnitude 5+ earthquakes have occurred in Oklahoma, three of which occurred in 2016. And they've occurred in several states.
Natural gas is cracked by very high heat until its large hydrocarbon molecules are broken (cracked) into smaller ones, monomers such as ethylene. Its production exceeds that of any other organic compound (any compound of carbon). Ethylene is the feedstock of many types of polyethylene. Manufacturing products from the feedstock requires more energy and releases more greenhouse gasses. As of 2017, over 100 million tonnes of polyethylene resins are being produced annually, accounting for 34% of the total plastics market. This will increase dramatically as plastic production could almost quadruple by 2050!
Even after these raw plastics become products, they continue to emit greenhouse gasses. The amount emitted into the atmosphere by these finished plastic products is relative to their surface area. With age and depending on individual conditions, they all break down into continually smaller pieces, leading to higher surface areas relative to each product's original mass. And that facilitates significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions than from the original product. Imagine your car's tires becoming worn down. All the microscopic dust that is worn off the tires by abrasion on the roadways emits higher quantities of greenhouse gasses because the surface-to-volume ratio is higher than the original new tire.
Why is Surface Area to Volume Ratio Important?
To understand this process, picture a 1-inch cube with a surface area of 6 square inches. When that cube is divided into eight 1/2-inch cubes, its surface area doubles to 12 square inches. With each such subdivision, the surface area doubles again. By the 20th subdivision, the surface area is about one square acre. With three more such divisions, the surface area equals 12 square acres. Yet amazingly, the solid volume remains at 1 cubic inch.
The greater the surface area, the higher the area that emits greenhouse gasses. At the same time, greater quantities of toxicants called endocrine disruptors are made available for migration into and onto whatever they contact.
Plastic nanoparticles continue to break down into single molecules that are totally invisible to the naked eye and emit far greater amounts of greenhouse gasses than the original products.
This important example illustrates how plastics become more toxic as they age. But it also illustrates how minute quantities of plastic can easily spread over vast areas of the world, on land, in the air, in oceans, as well as our food and bodies, forever modifying life as we think we know it.
Corporate Climate Change
Plastics have become a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry after it was were hit hard by the drop in usage as a result of the Covid pandemic. Not so far from the first oil well by Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the Royal Dutch Shell PLC joined economic forces with the plastics industry near natural gas fields in Monaca, PA. Employing more than 5,000 people on a 386-acre property along the Ohio River, it's presently "one of the largest active construction projects in the United States." It will include hundreds of miles of pipeline and a rail system with 3,300 freights cars producing over a million tons a year. It's a massive project that will have undeniable effects on climate change. A unit of state-owned Thai oil and gas company PTT PCL is also developing an ethane cracker in the same region.
As natural gas is extracted from the earth, methane is its largest part. As ethane is isolated from natural gas, it's converted to ethylene and the methane is shipped to residential and commercial customers as "natural gas" fuel. Ethylene itself is a greenhouse gas. But methane traps significantly more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 and does about 25 times more damage to the climate over a 100-year period than CO2 .
Plastics production is one of few opportunities for the gas industry to profit from ethane. Without using it in plastics, the fracking industry would be unable to justify using many of its wells. That puts Monaca, PA, in the cross-hairs of both the gas and plastics industries. But don't over-focus on polyethylene because the list of other types of plastics is seemingly endless. And all are made of 99% fossil fuels.
Everybody Knows, But...
Three-hundred years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle knew that human activity modified local climates. Christopher Columbus experienced that the clearing of the forest cover of the Madeira, Canary, and Azores islands reduced their rain and mist. And his words were recalled as evidence to remove forests by white European settlers who were unprepared for the climate of North America.
Plastics production begins with extracting oil, natural gas or coal, which involves the defiling of vast areas of land, both above and below the surface, as well as rivers, lakes and atmosphere. Great quantities of toxic substances are pumped into the ground during extraction. And great quantities of fuels are consumed transporting raw resources via truck, train and pipelines to processing facilities, themselves releasing greenhouse gasses. Oil and gas extraction and wastewater disposal from oil and gas has caused many earthquakes.
Beginning in 2009, Oklahoma experienced a surge in earthquakes. The largest earthquake known to be induced by fluid wastewater disposal from oil and gas production was a magnitude 5.8 earthquake on September 23, 2016, in central Oklahoma. Four magnitude 5+ earthquakes have occurred in Oklahoma, three of which occurred in 2016. And they've occurred in several states.
Natural gas is cracked by very high heat until its large hydrocarbon molecules are broken (cracked) into smaller ones, monomers such as ethylene. Its production exceeds that of any other organic compound (any compound of carbon). Ethylene is the feedstock of many types of polyethylene. Manufacturing products from the feedstock requires more energy and releases more greenhouse gasses. As of 2017, over 100 million tonnes of polyethylene resins are being produced annually, accounting for 34% of the total plastics market. This will increase dramatically as plastic production could almost quadruple by 2050!
Why is Surface Area to Volume Ratio Important?
To understand this process, picture a 1-inch cube with a surface area of 6 square inches. When that cube is divided into eight 1/2-inch cubes, its surface area doubles to 12 square inches. With each such subdivision, the surface area doubles again. By the 20th subdivision, the surface area is about one square acre. With three more such divisions, the surface area equals 12 square acres. Yet amazingly, the solid volume remains at 1 cubic inch.
The greater the surface area, the higher the area that emits greenhouse gasses. At the same time, greater quantities of toxicants called endocrine disruptors are made available for migration into and onto whatever they contact.
Plastic nanoparticles continue to break down into single molecules that are totally invisible to the naked eye and emit far greater amounts of greenhouse gasses than the original products.
This important example illustrates how plastics become more toxic as they age. But it also illustrates how minute quantities of plastic can easily spread over vast areas of the world, on land, in the air, in oceans, as well as our food and bodies, forever modifying life as we think we know it.
Corporate Climate Change
Plastics have become a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry after it was were hit hard by the drop in usage as a result of the Covid pandemic. Not so far from the first oil well by Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the Royal Dutch Shell PLC joined economic forces with the plastics industry near natural gas fields in Monaca, PA. Employing more than 5,000 people on a 386-acre property along the Ohio River, it's presently "one of the largest active construction projects in the United States." It will include hundreds of miles of pipeline and a rail system with 3,300 freights cars producing over a million tons a year. It's a massive project that will have undeniable effects on climate change. A unit of state-owned Thai oil and gas company PTT PCL is also developing an ethane cracker in the same region.
As natural gas is extracted from the earth, methane is its largest part. As ethane is isolated from natural gas, it's converted to ethylene and the methane is shipped to residential and commercial customers as "natural gas" fuel. Ethylene itself is a greenhouse gas. But methane traps significantly more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 and does about 25 times more damage to the climate over a 100-year period than CO2 .
Plastics production is one of few opportunities for the gas industry to profit from ethane. Without using it in plastics, the fracking industry would be unable to justify using many of its wells. That puts Monaca, PA, in the cross-hairs of both the gas and plastics industries. But don't over-focus on polyethylene because the list of other types of plastics is seemingly endless. And all are made of 99% fossil fuels.
Everybody Knows, But...
Three-hundred years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle knew that human activity modified local climates. Christopher Columbus experienced that the clearing of the forest cover of the Madeira, Canary, and Azores islands reduced their rain and mist. And his words were recalled as evidence to remove forests by white European settlers who were unprepared for the climate of North America.
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