Plastics’ consumption of oil may outpace that of cars by 2050. The production process consumes fossil fuels to make plastics and maintain the high temperatures for refining and manufacturing. Methane leaks during drilling, transport, and refining, and polyethene releases greenhouse gases when it breaks down.
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While plastic can be made without fossil fuel input, the vast (VAST) majority today relies on gas and oil production. Fracked gas is abundant and cheap (unless you count climate and health costs). To ensure a good market for gas, the gas industry is helping ramp up plastic manufacturing. There’s lots being written about this, if you care to look.
More Plastic Is On the Way: What It Means for Climate Change
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/02/20/plastic-production-climate-change/
Feb 20, 2020 – With the recent fracking boom causing low gas prices, fossil fuel companies are seeking other ways to bolster their profits — by making more plastic. Just as the world is starting to address its enormous plastic pollution problem, these companies are doubling down on plastic, with huge potential consequences for climate and the environment.
Will a push for plastics turn Appalachia into next ‘Cancer Alley’
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/plastics-appalachia-next-cancer-alley-fracking-public-health-ethane
Oct 11, 2019 –
A Giant Factory Rises to Make a Product Filling Up the World: Plastic
Royal Dutch Shell’s plant will produce more than a million tons of plastic, in the form of tiny pellets. Many in the Pittsburgh area see it as an economic engine, but others worry about long-term harm.
The New York Times, Aug 12, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/energy-environment/plastics-shell-pennsylvania-plant.html
Petrochemicals in PA: What You Need to Know
February 19, 2020 Mark Szybist
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/mark-szybist/energy-pennsylvania-2019-petrochemicals
[The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says you need to know that chemicals made from gas, oil and coal are hazardous to your health.]
Petrochemicals are chemicals made from gas, oil, and coal … Petrochemical manufacturing emits massive amounts of toxic air emissions … linked to respiratory diseases, central nervous system impairment, and reproductive and developmental problems. Water pollution is a problem, too. Petrochemical plants are the reason the stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is known as “Cancer Alley.”