This question could become a debate, so mods should move it if necessary.
It is my understanding that plastic is a by-product of petroleum, please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m wondering if there is some kind of non-petroleum based plastic alternative. Considering the ubiquity of plastics, it would seem that if we had such an alternative that perhaps our petroleum needs might drop. However, I have no idea how much petroleum is actually used in the manufacture of plastics. It may be so small that an alternative wouldn’t make a difference. So…
Is there a non-petroleum based plastic alternative?
There are many, many different kinds of plastics, each of which fills a different need. So, something like this isn’t going to replace every plastic currently made.
Much of the plastic we use is simply wasted - just think of the thousands of tons of fast-food plastic that is thrown away every single day. If we we more thoughtful in our use of plastics, or consumption of them would go way down.
We haven’t seen it yet, but I suspect that biotechnology will eventually yield a genetically modified bacteria/yeast/something capable of producing the monomers needed for a polymer plastic. In an ideal scenario, you’d feed the critters sewage or garbage.
Wood, metals, paper, ceramics, glass. Used them for centuries just fine.
However if your energy to make the above (heat or electricity) comes from burning oil or coal, then it may be in many applications less wasteful of the fossil fuels to use plastics as the total amount of oil used might be less. Also, plastics are lighter, so say cars will burn less petrol if you can replace a large amount of the heavy metal or wooden items in the car.
If you can use hydroelectricity, nuclear, wood burning or wind power to smelt your aluminium or glass, then go with the above.
Many people are looking at bioplastics, however they usually dont have the cost or performance of synthetics
And were replaced by plastic because they are more expensive, rarer, harder to shape, less resistant to fire or heat or acid or cold, less dishwasher and microwave safe, heavier, less durable, etc. etc. etc. We will not go back to them except for special uses no matter what the future brings.
Products or byproducts from genetically-engineered bacteria are the likely long-term solution.
A bit of browsing found many web sites that say petrochemicals (the field that uses oil as a chemical ingredient rather than burning it for energy) consumes about 10% of all oil, and plastics in particular accounts for about 4 or 7 percent of that depending on how it is counted (there was some fine distinction there that I missed). Petrochemicals would also include paint, solvents, insecticides, cosmetics - a huge variety.
Offhand, I think it looks possible that there is more oil consumed in the process of shipping plastics all over the place than there is in making them.