Page 42 - Plastics News December 2022

FEATURE

Plastics Are Inert, Indigestible, Non-Toxic, and Widely ‘Myth-Understood’

cludes a water/soda bottle, which is which deprives them of the comfort
made from PET, chemically very dif- of miracles. They are quick to label
ferent from polyolefins and already plastic as toxic because it is:
valuably recycled. Not irrelevant, as • unnatural (but earthquakes, rat-
it appeals to people who see lots of tlesnakes, and viruses are natu-
plastic bottles and think all plastics are ral);
harmful.
• a chemical (but everything is
Allan Griff, consulting chemical The drawing is also misleading as it chemicals, including water, air,
engineer, columnist for Plastic- shows the feed of a complex hydro- and us);
sToday, and self-professed real- carbon which may derive from PE/ • changeable (but so is weather
ist, came across an article in MIT PP but isn’t our familiar view of long and our bodies);
News that contained a misleading chains. Also, the product is propyl-
image and even some errors. He ene, not propane. Propylene may be • synthetic (but so are many medi-
shares his thoughts. worth more than propane and doesn't cines and foods);
need added hydrogens. The drawing • corporate (but corporations can
received a report on MIT research also shows production of methane, a
I involving the use of porous minerals greenhouse gas that isn't wanted, es- be creative, and volume and ef-
with a cobalt catalyst to make propane pecially in the air. ficiency can keep prices down
from scrap (recycled) polyolefins. when responsibly regulated).
The article states that the economics What we really fear is ourselves —
Porous minerals (zeolites) are well to make propane and sell it are prom-
known. If researchers can use their ising, but the authors give neither humanipulation.
pore size to produce 3-carbon mol- investment nor operating nor sales/ It isn't only the unscientific masses
ecules (propane), that's newsworthy. price data. And there’s nothing on en- who think this way. Our own indus-
But it begs the question of how much ergy needs in kilowatt-hours, which try is doing what the public — our
1-carbon (methane) and 2-carbon may make the process less attrac- customers —when it talks about
(ethane) get through and what you do tive to many environmental-minded sustainability and circularity, and the
with them. people. You need to break a lot of politicians correctly see such myth-
The article also implies that polyole- those strong C-C bonds to break the understanding as doing what the vot-
fins are pollutants, which is wrong polymer chain, a basic flaw in much ers want.
because they are not toxic in their advanced/chemical recycling except Waste is a separate and opposite
normal solid form — very strong C-C some pyrolysis. problem from pollution. Waste is
bonds, long chains, low reactivity. Lastly, the article invokes the popular losing good stuff, but pollution is the
Chemically, they are more like fats, image of plastics in our bodies, ignor- presence of bad stuff. Our plastics
but simpler. There are no phthalates ing the impossibility of digestion or industry can and should reduce its
or BPA. I'd worry more about the circulation. Micro-plastic particles are waste. But don’t single out plastics
toxicity of cobalt than polyolefin plas- far too big to penetrate the gut wall as more wasteful than other materi-
tics. and then circulate through our net- als, and remember that they reduce

Toxicity of solid plastics is a popular work of capillaries. And how much other waste — food, energy, water
but false image based on the human matters, as I often say. Discarded fish- — and keep us healthy, as they don’t
need to resist science so that we can nets may be harmful to aquatic crea- support bacteria (as wet paper does)
believe in the impossible, which goes tures, but so is catching fish and eating and, thus, prevent sickness and help
back to the comforts of infancy when them. in the cures.
nothing can be explained. Yet, many people still want to believe Plastics are relatively harmless but
The article mixes up PET and PE and that micro-plastics are inside us to people want them to be bad? Yes, and
includes a drawing (above) that in- support their need to resist science, now maybe you see why.

42 PLASTICS NEWS December 2022