One of those “floating plastic garbage” things in the Atlantic prompted me to ask this.
I discussed it briefly with my wife who reminded me of the medical applications and so we both concluded “no”, but greater minds than mine reside here, so what say you?
Thanks
Q
Well of course we could have done without plastic. We survived well as a society without plastic up until about 100 years ago. Of course all you have to do is look all around you at the advancement that plastic has awarded us. Without plastic, everything would be heavier and more costly, but I’m pretty sure we’d still have most of the technology we currently have.
It would be very, very difficult to make modern electronics without plastics. Even 1920’s electronics (or Death Rays) used plastic - Bakelite.
You don’t need plastic in electronics. Maybe the circuit board, but before circuit boards point-to-point wiring was used. I’m sure we could find a way to etch and drill ceramic or something. Ceramic cases for ICs were common until even 10 years ago, and are still used in some specific applications today.
I can see maybe the base on old tubes being Bakelite, but it probably could have been made from ceramic as well, no. Where’s the major difficulty in electronics manufacturing sans plastic?
Insulating materials? Ever see the old wires with the cloth insulation? Scary stuff. Not very flexible or safe. Be interesting trying to build a laptop using such wires.
I wouldn’t think there are that many wires in a laptop? Besides, if plastic wasn’t invented I’m sure that we’d have improved upon wire insulating techniques by now.
In fact here’s a company that manufactures flexible glass insulated wires.
Gutta Percha was used as an electrical insulator, wasn’t it?
Plastic has been pretty good for food preservation.
Fisherman would be stuck with braided lines and wooden lures.
I know, it’s not very important in the grand scheme of things. 
Everywhere.
Without plastic, there would never have been the electronics revolution we currently have. Plastic molding allowed the development of inexpensive ICs. Yes, ceramics were used, but they made ICs very expensive and so side-brazed cases were only used in the military (for the most part). Plastics also allowed lightweight, strong, and inexpensive cases to be made.
If plastic didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it.
By which I mean, if petrochemicals were not readily available, we would have developed something similar based on coal, or wood oils, or something else like that - unless humanity made some kind of collective effort to avoid developing them.
Michael Jackson would have said “No!”
From certain points of view, Michael Jackson would never have existed at all.
I think about this a lot, since I’m a regular reader of the “Fake Plastic Fish” blog. Although plastic is needed for electronics and medical devices, one could probably eliminate 90% of plastic use in our society by just eliminating all disposable plastic. That’s the real problem, in my opinion–not that plastic exists, but that so much of it is used once and thrown away.
I like to imagine what it would be like to go to a modern supermarket in a world where plastic could not be used in packaging. You’d buy drinks in glass bottles (or cans), and everything else would be in cardboard boxes or waxed paper or paper bags. Or jars.
I wish we lived in such a world.
Necessity is the mother of invention. If we did not have petrochemical plastics we would likely have developed substitutes. I think plastic substitutes could be made with silicon in the place of carbon. Note I am taking your definition of plastic to mean plastics based on long hydrocarbon chains.
They are, and they’re called silicones.
Are plastics based on other elements possible? Germanium, perhaps?
Hrumph.
Like basing toilet tissue on diamonds.:smack:
Aluminum and glass has to be recycled, and the recycling process takes energy. Mostly fueled by petroleum since we don’t yet have widespread alternative sources. Tin cans get thrown away and use up landfill space.
How about we just make it a crime punishable by death for these morons to toss their plastic bags and beerpak rings out of their windows and off of their boats? 
:smack: