The future is not made of wood.
One of the good things about wood is you don't have to worry about it sticking around for 1000+ years. The problem with plastics is most of it can't be recycled. Not the way we think of recycling.
Aluminum cans are melted down and turned back into aluminum cans. Polymers are ground up and injection molded into lower grade polymers. Once too many polymer chains get broken the grade is too low to be usable.
The problem with plastics is its cheap acquisition costs and expensive disposal costs. One of the good things about living in a developed country is we sorta manage the disposal costs well. In developing countries they don't manage plastic disposal at all. In all my travels one of the overriding themes I've seen is plastic on the sides of road, in rivers, on the beach.
When I removed the wooden door from a house we didn't need to call the city to send a special truck to dispose of it. We chopped it into pieces and used it for bbq. Then we mixed the ashes into the compost. Disposal was $0.
While plastic is cheap in the short term I think there are a lot of long term costs that get ignored.
Great point. Simple and head-smack obvious when you read it. Hits right at the core.
Immediately after reading, I generalized to "cheap up-front, expensive back-end costs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis#Plastic_waste_disposa...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
(Those processes mostly just mean that it all comes down to whether you want to put energy into something. Whether they are economical today doesn't factor into the usefulness in eliminating mountains of plastic.)
It's quite profitable, just the required amount of upfront investment is high.
- I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.
- Yes, sir.
- Are you listening?
- Yes, I am.
- Plastics.