[zolthrowaway]

>What's wrong with using tons of oil?

Plastics are incredibly useful. Tons upon tons of bottles end up in landfills, oceans, etc. Even with plastic recycling, PET yields aren't 100%. There is only so much oil and eventually the plastics we have will cease to be recyclable.

I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to use a disposable plastic bottle from time to time. There's not anything wrong with having a case of water. But no one with access to clean water should primarily use disposable bottles. It's lazy and shortsighted.

[dTal]

We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it). Right now it's not really a profitable enterprise in competition with ground based oil, but at some point it will be. And it's carbon neutral (as is everything that doesn't involve digging up basically pure carbon and burning it).

Of course, all of your other points are spot on. It is irresponsible to use such a permanent material for so much disposable stuff.

[bordercases]

> We will never run out of oil, as it can be synthesized from organic waste (basically just by cooking the crap out of it)

Powered by what? Oil?

What's the efficiency of that? How long are you willing to wait if you don't use combustible carbons?

[dTal]

Supposedly, fueling the process by burning the product is about 85% efficient [1]. Regardless, the point is we will always be able to make plastic, even when the wells dry up. The worst that'll happen is the price will go up.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization