Comment by bluGill
4 hours ago
PLA plastic as commonly used in 3d printers comes from plant materials not oil. We know how to make any plastic from pure CO2 (and whatever else needed for the atoms) - however the massive amount of energy needed to do so makes it uneconomical.
Also celluloid (made from cellulose), which I was pretty surprised to learn is about 170 years old. Plastics from oil were mostly invented after WWI and took off during WWII, but they had some kinds before that.
The catalysts used in industrial PLA manufacturing processes use chemicals derived from propane.