[rekado]

Oil is a limited resource that can be used for way more important things than disposable water bottles, such as medical supplies (syringes, IV bags, etc) and durable plastics components. Plastics themselves are a great resource that should not be wasted, not least because of the amount of energy and water it takes to produce them.

Most plastic bottles are burnt, so they do contribute to climate change; the small percentage of bottles that actually are recycled cannot be turned into new bottles --- plastics are always downcycled; recycled plastics are sometimes mixed in with virgin plastic pellets, but it's usually a relatively small amount of the total.

(I'm setting up an educational project for school classes on the topic of plastic recycling and renewable energy.)

[Siecje]

Plastic is created with a by-product of diesel/gasoline, so since it is going to be created anyways it is not very wasteful.

[rekado]

Monomers like ethylene are a by-product of splitting oil; you still need polymerization and processing of the polymers (e.g. extruding, moulding, etc).

It's non-sequitur to say that the process is not wasteful because part of the initial work is done to obtain gasoline. Oil itself is a limited resource.

[tedunangst]

Are we actually experiencing a syringe shortage because there's not enough plastic to go around?

[rekado]

No. But should we only begin prioritizing the allocation of resources once it has become a problem?

If it is correct that it will become increasingly uneconomical to process crude oil, the supply of virgin plastic will eventually decrease. It makes sense to reduce wasteful usage of that resource before that becomes a problem.