Plastics and Sustainability: Towards a Peaceful Coexistence between Bio-based and Fossil Fuel-based Plastics

From the Author: Five Possible Misconceptions about Plastics and Sustainability

These days, given the controversial issues about the use and abuse of plastics and fossil fuels, just the idea of plastic materials can bring up associations -- both negative and positive – in anyone’s mind. The word “plastics” in the title of a book is likely to have a similar effect. Thus, to clarify the aims and purpose of my new book, Plastics and Sustainability, below I try to anticipate and then refute five possible misconceptions people could have, at first, about a book with such a title.

1.) Possible misconception: The book will show an overall negative/positive bias against/for the use of plastics. It’s true that the author is a part-time plastics industry journalist. But he’s also been a college instructor who’s emphasized to his students the importance of objective, independent inquiry, and a former engineer who’s had to deal with raw, unvarnished, technical facts about materials and processes. Thus the book does not unquestioningly support industry positions about the appropriateness of plastics use, nor does it support unjustifiable views of those with an anti-plastics agenda.

2.) Possible misconception: The book will argue that bio-based, biodegradable, or recycled-content plastics are always the better choice for various common applications. The book will show the amazing strides that have been made toward creating new polymer and plastic compound formulations with smaller environmental footprints. Yet as the book also shows, questions remain about these materials’ overall effects on the environment, their costs and properties, and the applications in which they are most effectively used.

3.) Possible misconception: The author will argue that plastics recycling is a “magic bullet” for solving most of plastics’ sustainability issues. Plastics recycling is a technically and financially challenging business, making plastics recyclers unsung heroes of the industry. As the book shows in-depth, the technical and social obstacles to recycling various plastics will always be difficult to overcome, even as manufacturers try to offer products that are more recyclable.

4.) Possible misconception: The book will be too technical for readers who don’t have a background in polymer science or engineering. Or it won’t be technical enough, oversimplifying inherently complex issues. The book was intended to serve a much wider audience than just plastics industry researchers. Accordingly, it relies on readable language to communicate important concepts, rather than structural formulas of polymer molecules or complicated equations. It does go into some technical depth at times -- when it’s required. But it also uses a story threaded throughout the book about a fictional plastics packaging manufacturer to illustrate the difficulties of making real decisions about plastics and sustainability. Thus the book is meant to be accessible for business managers, non-engineers, and public policy makers (while also being readable for professionals who don’t use English as their everyday language).

5.) Possible misconception: The book will only emphasize tools commonly used for making decisions about sustainability, such as life-cycle assessment, principles of green chemistry, and design for the environment. Despite the importance of these tools, the book will not over-emphasize their importance. In the long term, imagination plus new, honest ways of looking at problems with plastics’ environmental impacts will also be needed. Social issues still require more debate and consensus. New options in materials and products must be created, along with a better understanding of what a “greener” marketplace wants and needs. To this end, the book does offer some simple tools for making decisions in this new green field of plastics, which is constantly changing. And, using examples and hundreds of cited references, the book attempts to overview the social, political, and environmental pressures on plastics to become greener, showing how plastics makers and users are entering a new phase of development and innovation.