Comment by kennywinker
4 hours ago
“The raw materials for epoxy resin production are today largely petroleum derived, although some plant derived sources are now becoming commercially available (e.g. plant derived glycerol used to make epichlorohydrin).”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoxy
if they were obtained from non-fossil sources - but they weren’t, and the industry hasn’t switched and may never switch to plant based.
Also, what you said isn’t necessarily true even with plant based resins. What is the carbon cost of producing new resin vs recycling old?
There’s more to the impact of a material than the carbon stored inside it.
Yes, we were all duped by the recycling industry. No that doesn’t make all attempts at recycling a lie.
> Also, what you said isn’t necessarily true even with plant based resins. What is the carbon cost of producing new resin vs recycling old?
In the post-fossil fuel age, where is the net carbon supposed to be coming from? Unless we're using limestone, it's from the air, so there can't be net emission.
In the not-yet post-fossil fuel age, what matters is displacing fossil fuels as quickly as possible, not the relatively very minor amount of carbon embodied in the renewable energy machinery.