Materials Use & Plastics
There is a perception that we are “drowning in plastic.” So, how much plastic do we use every year relative to other materials? That is information I only discovered after finishing The Plastics Paradox. I was reading a book by Michael Ashby, and I turned over the page to see a pie chart showing that concrete, metal, and wood make up approximately 99% of the materials we use by weight. The number shocked me. In fact, I was so surprised that I had to check the claim against other sources.
Materials and the Environment: Eco-Informed Material Choice, Michael F. Ashby, Butterworth-Heinemann / Elsevier, Oxford, page 18, UK, 2009
Plastic consumption is around 0.4 billion tons per year, so let’s put it into perspective by comparing that to the total amount of materials we consume per year, which is 107 billion metric tons per year. A quick calculation reveals that plastics make up less than 1% of materials we use by weight or by volume. So, although we do indeed use a lot of plastic, no rational person could make the claim that plastics are the major problem when other materials account for over 99% of the total.
H. Bruyninckx: Global Resource Outlook 2024: Bend the Trend, UNEP, p. 26, 2024
Annual production of plastics worldwide from 1950 to 2023, Published by Statista Research Department, Nov 21st, 2024
We can already see that misleading information grossly misrepresented the relative contribution of plastic compared to other materials.
When confronted with the actual amount of plastic relative to other materials, some people respond that it simply can’t be right because plastics are all around us. I decided to check what materials are used to make a house to gain some insight and perspective.
These are just rough numbers for illustrative purposes…
House Structure: A typical single-family, two-storey house with a wood frame and brick exterior weighs around 100,000 to 200,000 pounds (50,000 to 100,000 kg).
Furnishings & Appliances: Around 8,000 to 12,000 pounds (3,600 to 5,400 kg).
Personal Belongings: Personal belongings around 1,000 to 2,000 pounds (450 to 900 kg) per person living in the house.
That works out to 100 parts house structure to 4 parts furnishings and around 1–2 parts belongings. We overlook the materials comprising our homes in our daily lives; they are nearly invisible to our conscious minds. We also think very little about our furniture or appliances. What we primarily focus on is our personal belongings, as we feel more of a connection to them and interact with them more physically through touch, smell, and so on.
The same applies to what kinds of materials are used to make the house. Again, here are some rough estimates only to illustrate the concept. The breakdown mimics closely the numbers we just saw for total materials use globally.
Concrete: 60–70%
Brick: 5–15%
Wood: 10–15%
Glass: around 5%
Steel: around 5%
Other: around 5%
Plastic: 1–3%
It appears then that our awareness of and focus on plastic materials is very much out of proportion to how much of it we really use.
Plastic Market Growth
Another common claim made against plastics is that they are bad because they are “growing exponentially.” So-called “environmental groups” say that all the time. Does that argument hold water?
Here is the data on how the consumption of materials has grown over the decades.
E. Elhacham et al., Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass, Nature, 588, pp. 442–444, December 2020
It is clear from this that all materials are growing exponentially. In fact, plastic materials make up a tiny fraction — less than one tenth — of that yellow line labelled “other.” Therefore, any organisation claiming that plastics are especially problematic because of their growth rate is not being honest. Plastic production has increased and is increasing in line with all the other materials we use.
Using more materials is associated with wealth. In fact, there is a linear correlation between material usage and prosperity. This means that using more materials is not necessarily bad.
T. Gutowski et al., Why We Use More Materials, Philosophical Transactions A, The Royal Society, 375, 20160368, 2017
Materials & Carbon Dioxide (GHG)
Of course, the amount of material we use is only one factor. What if plastics are vastly worse for the environment compared to these other materials that we use more? That is a topic explored in depth later on, but let us take a first glance at it here. Impact takes many forms, but most consider that carbon dioxide, i.e. one of the greenhouse gases (GHG), is the main one. I would like to mention that I am not making any statements about global warming here; rather, I am showing the data because so many people believe strongly that this is a major area of concern.
Here is a comprehensive breakdown of GHG sources globally.
Materials production accounts for 20–25% of global GHG emissions.
E. G. Hertwich, Increased carbon footprint of materials production driven by rise in investments, Nature Geoscience, 14, pp. 151–155, 2021
That means that materials production is clearly a major GHG factor, but are plastics the primary culprit? Industrial emissions from materials production total 10 Gt of carbon dioxide, and here is a breakdown by material.
J. M. Allwood & J. M. Cullen, Sustainable Materials: With Both Eyes Open, Cambridge University Press, 2018 – From International Energy Agency Data
The data makes one thing clear: Anyone truly concerned about the impact of materials on greenhouse gas emissions should focus on iron, steel, and cement — not on plastics.
Moreover, numerous studies show that plastics can actually help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For instance, plastic packaging plays a critical role in preventing food waste by extending shelf life and protecting food from damage. Since food production is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, reducing food waste through effective packaging has a significant, positive environmental impact.
“In 2007 the estimated use benefits were 5-9 times higher than the emissions from the production and recovery phases.”
“In 2020 the estimated use-benefits could be 9-15 times higher than the forecast emissions.”
“Substitution of plastic products by other materials will in most cases increase the consumption of energy and the emission of greenhouse gases.”
H. Pilz, B. Brandt, and R. Fehringer, The impact of plastics on life cycle energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, denkstatt GmbH, 2010
They discovered that plastic packaging prevents far more GHG emissions than its production generates. This illustrates the importance of considering all factors when assessing impact.
I discuss that subject in more detail later in the book.
Plastics are Made of Fossil Fuel
The common perception is that plastics are bad because they are made of fossil fuel. But does that argument stand up to scrutiny? The graph below went viral when I posted it online, garnering well over a quarter million views.
The dark blue bars represent the oil used to produce plastic materials, while the light blue bars show the oil burned for energy during the production process. Interestingly, the amount of oil required to make plastics is significantly lower than for many other common materials. This is because plastics are created and processed at relatively low temperatures.
In contrast, materials like iron, steel, copper, aluminium, silver, gold, and glass are processed at temperatures so high that they glow red-hot. Even without diving into the exact numbers, it’s easy to understand just how energy-intensive these processes are compared to plastics.
N. G. McCrum. C. P. Buckley & C. B. Bucknall, Principles of Polymer Engineering, Oxford University Press, UK, 1988
Plastics Use Fossil Fuel
We all know that fossil fuel is used to make plastics, and that is one of the major criticisms of plastic. While it is true that oil is the raw material for plastic, there is a lot more to the story than that.
As this chapter is about perspective, we should first look at what oil is used for. Here is a depiction of the fate of an oil barrel.
https://www.breakthroughfuel.com/blog/crude-oil-barrel
https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-products-and-fuels-made-from-crude-oil/
It turns out that around 85% of oil is burnt, and the strange thing is that no one seems to mind. We jump in our cars and drive around, sometimes just for the fun of it. We get our orders delivered by truck. We jet around for our holidays. We heat our homes with oil. And yet, when it comes to using around 5% of oil to make plastic, now suddenly people protest — This must stop!
The 13% of oil use marked “other” includes chemicals, medicines, and plastic. The best scientists I know believe that we should stop wasting the oil we burn (around 85% of the total oil), instead saving it for those other far more valuable uses. How can people honestly think that burning oil, which converts it into CO2, a greenhouse gas, is a better idea than making plastic products that improve our lives and save lives? And anyway, when a product comes to the end of its life, we can still burn the plastic and release the energy to create electricity.
There is another overlooked factor when it comes to oil and plastics. So-called “environmental” groups like to talk about the oil used to make plastics, but they never talk about the other side of the equation. What does that mean? Well, we all know that plastics make cars and planes lighter, which lowers fuel, i.e. oil, consumption. Similarly, plastics are used to insulate buildings, so we need less energy (less fossil fuel) to heat our homes. In order to accurately and fairly assess the impact of plastics on fossil fuel and oil use, we would need to factor in the oil saved by using plastic. That is a little outside my field, so I asked 4 independent scientists to run the calculation, and the amount of oil saved by making cars and airplanes lighter may be more than the total amount of oil used to make plastic. You can even check it for yourself on ChatGPT to get a rough idea.
When you run the numbers, plastics make cars around 10% more fuel efficient. Now look at the amount of gasoline used for cars in the graphic: 43% of total use. If you save 10% of that 43% by making cars lighter with plastic, then you have saved around 4% of all oil consumed worldwide, which is about the same amount used to create all plastic materials. Adding the oil saved from lighter trucks, planes, and building insulation, plus reduced food waste, the plastics industry becomes net fossil fuel neutral or even negative, saving more oil than it consumes.
J. Allwood & J. Cullen, Sustainable Materials – with both eyes open: Future buildings, vehicles, products and equipment – made efficiently and made with less new material (without the hot air), UIT Cambridge Ltd, 2012
“Trucost estimates that if plastic components in passenger vehicles produced in North America in 2015 were replaced with alternative materials, the vehicles would require an additional 336 million liters of gasoline and diesel to operate over their lifetimes. The environmental cost of producing, distributing, and combusting this fuel in the first year is estimated to be US$176 million and US$2.3 billion over the lifetime operating mileage of vehicles produced in 2015. This equates to an environmental cost of $169 per gasoline or diesel passenger car sold in North America in 2015.”
R. Lord, Plastics and Sustainability: A Valuation of Environmental Benefits, Costs and Opportunities for Continuous Improvement, Trucost, 2016
This shows just how important it is to look at both sides of the equation. Anyone who talks only about the oil used to make plastic while conveniently “forgetting” to mention the oil saved by using plastic is gravely misleading you.
Bio-based Plastics
There are many types of plastic that can be made from plant-based feedstocks instead of oil and other fossil fuels, but the ones with the most promise are standard PE, PP, nylons, and PET made from plant-based raw materials. These are drop-in alternatives to fossil-fuel-derived plastics that also benefit the economy while having a low impact on the environment.
“The US$87 million investment aims to meet the growing global demand for sustainable products. The plant now operates at an increased capacity, from 200,000 to 260,000 tons/year.”
“Braskem’s bio-based ethylene is made from sustainably sourced, sugarcane-based ethanol which removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it in products for daily use.”
“Each ton of plastic resin made from renewable feedstock represents the removal of 3 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. Since the plant’s beginning in 2010, more than 1.2 million tons of I’m green™ bio-based polyethylene has been produced. The recent increase in production capacity will remove approximately 185,000 tons of CO2 equivalent per year.”
https://www.braskem.com.br/imgreen/details-news/braskem-expands-its-biopolymer-production-by-30-following-an-investment-of-us-87-million
The public is unaware that plastics can and are made using other feedstocks and that we already have options to reduce reliance on oil when we need to. For the moment, it makes the most sense to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and reserve them for more valuable uses like making medicines, plastics, and chemicals. Later, we can transition to plant-based feedstocks if necessary.
There are several other plastics that can be made from bio-based, renewable feedstocks such as PLA and PHB/PHA, but life cycle studies show that they have a greater environmental impact than standard plastics such as PE and PP.
M. Tabone et al., Sustainability Metrics: Life Cycle Assessment and Green Design in Polymers, Environmental Science & Technology, 44 (21), pp. 8264–8269, 2010
Plastic Waste
What about plastic waste? Is it really the fundamental problem for waste generation and landfills? From the previous discussion, we know that plastics make up less than 1% of the materials we use, so it should come as no surprise that plastics are also under 1% of total waste.
It is difficult to get an exact number for the amount of waste generated globally because 97% of waste is industrial waste and it is not documented as well as one might hope. However, various estimates reveal that 97% of all waste is industrial, and plastic makes up a minuscule portion because a large amount comes from sources like mining waste.
Elizabeth Royte, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, Little, Brown and Company, 2016
US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment – Managing Industrial Solid Wastes from Manufacturing, Mining, Oil, and Gas Production, and Utility Coal Combustion, OTA Report No. OTA-BP-O-82. Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1992
Human Activity and the Environment, Minister of Industry, Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2012
M. Liboiron, Municipal versus Industrial Waste: Questioning the 3-97 ratio, Discard Studies, 2016
We constantly hear that plastic makes up a large proportion of waste — for example, a US Environmental Protection Agency figure stated it was around 13%, as mentioned in The Plastics Paradox. What I did not realise back then was that although plastic is around 13–15% of household waste, household waste is only about 3% of total waste, with industrial waste making up the other 97%, as previously mentioned.
So, far from being the major contributor to waste, as we are told, other materials make up over 99% of our waste problem. That means that focusing on plastic waste and not the other 99% of waste ensures that we will fail to make any significant progress. It should be obvious that we can’t solve a problem by ignoring 99% of it.
Plastic Household Waste Production
Let’s look more closely at household waste, even though it is only around 3% of the total. Scientists observed that household waste used to increase every year, then unexpectedly, it stopped increasing. Why were we no longer creating as much waste as expected?
Source: https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials
It turned out that the growth of plastic use corresponded to a large decrease in the use of other materials.
“The increase in plastic waste generation coincides with a decrease in glass and metal found in the MSW stream. In addition, calculating the material substitution rates for glass, metal and other materials with plastics in packaging and containers demonstrates an overall reduction by weight and by volume in MSW generation of approximately 58% over the same time period.”
D. A. Tsiamis, M. Torres, M. J. Castaldi, Role of plastics in decoupling municipal solid waste and economic growth in the U.S., Waste Management, 77, pp. 147–155, 2018
On average, 1 pound of plastic can replace 3–4 pounds of alternative materials like paper, metal, wood, or glass. It turns out that the net effect of plastics has been to reduce waste creation and waste to landfill. Once more, we see that self-proclaimed “environmental” NGOs have made claims that contradict the evidence.
Another NGO strategy that is in vogue now is the quest for “zero waste.” That one baffles me. Why? Try not using the toilet for a week, and you’ll see that the “zero waste” quest is a fantasy.
Although waste is natural, normal, and unavoidable, we should still encourage waste reduction and responsible management.
Summary
In this chapter, we have learnt that although we use a lot of plastic by tonnage, it only accounts for less than 1% of materials we use and waste we create (by weight or by volume). Therefore, anyone telling us we need to focus only on plastics while ignoring the other 99% of materials is delusional, ignorant of the facts, or trying to mislead us.
But why would anyone intentionally mislead us about plastics? The answer might surprise you. Competing legacy industries have funded and established NGOs that masquerade as environmental groups, but they actually work to attack plastics, not to protect the environment. This is not speculation; it is a matter of public record. For example, Beyond Plastics, a prominent anti-plastic group, is funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.
“Bloomberg’s new focus on plastics comes at a key moment. The United Nations has projected plastics production will double by 2040, with stark climate implications.”
E.A. Crunden, E&E News by Politico, 09/21/2022
Unfortunately, this billionaire forgot to check his facts before acting because, as we have already seen, plastic production increases at the same rate as the other 99% of materials we use. Later in this book, we will see that he was also wrong about the alleged “climate implications.” It is a great shame that powerful people take action without doing their due diligence first.
Yes, we should work toward reducing material use and waste across the board. But there’s no scientific basis for vilifying plastics. They make up a tiny fraction of the total materials used, plus they reduce overall waste and material consumption when compared to alternatives like paper, wood, metal, or glass.
Now, to examine mismanaged waste, pollution, and litter, and let’s see whether the next set of accusations against plastics stands up to closer examination.