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Starbucks does not recycle plastic cups it claims are ‘widely recyclable’, report says
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 21 May 2026
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Is it all made from byproducts or are some plastics made specific from a batch of crude that is refined in a specific way to yield lots of a specific molecule that is needed? I am seriously asking since I dont have a clue.
As in: us there always e ought waste to create plastic no matter what? As long as we refine car propellant, that is.
So, there are certain products of refining oil that are just in the wrong range of properties to be used in their own right as fuels, over a century of work has gone in to finding uses for the stuff that can’t be fuels, or performing alchemy to make it in to fuel, what’s left over at this point is stuff that just… can’t be made in to fuel. Some of the thickest, densest gunk gets turned in to asphalt for roads, this is called bitumen. Above that is heavy oil used in ships or for heating, then diesel, then kerosene/jetfuel, then Naphtha, then petrol/gasoline, and then stuff like butane and propane.
Naphtha is just in this weird space where it’s too thick to be useful for places where you need the fuel to vaporize in to a gas easily like butane or gasoline, but to light to be used in something where you need it to stay liquid at high temperatures, like diesel. Lots of stuff was tried to find a usage for Naphtha but none of it was economical or had a large enough demand to use enough of it. So they started doing catalytic reformation to it, basically smashing the molecules up to make them lighter. This produces a new mix of stuff, the heavier bits are added to gasoline to raises its octane, but the lighter half of this stuff is too short for use in gas. This lighter stuff is mix of some useful stuff like butane and propane, but then there is ethane and a mix of weird aromatic compounds. These are just not useful as fuels and there isn’t an affordable way to process them in to fuels. So… something needs to be done with them; just venting them is not an option because a lot of it is super carcinogenic stuff like benzene.
And this is the issue, this is the bottom of the barrel left overs after so much processing, it can’t be dumped, it can’t be sold as fuel. It’s only useful as chemical feedstocks for making various plastics and chemicals. If we’re going to refine oil to make diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline, we’re gonna end up with these byproducts and we’re spent a century trying to figure out how to use them as fuel, and there just isn’t an economical way to do so. Ether the fuels get way more expensive to cover the costs of disposing of the junk safely, or they get passed along as plastics, chemicals, and asphalt for everyone else to deal with when they’re not useful anymore.
Have some gold kind stranger (and judging b this information also alchemist, wizard and rocket scientist).
🪙
One point is not clear to me though. Are the benzene amounts from fuel production sufficient for all plastic manufacturing or are they in short supply nowadays because of the risen demand for plastic? Or are they just shifting around their processes to be less fuel optimized to create enough plastic precursors if needed?
So, it’s not just benzene but a whole cocktail of aromatics (carbon molecules with rings in them) in addition to the ethane which is used to make poly ethylene plastic.
To answer your question, no, they never alter production for the sake of making more plastic, rather changes in production are driven by the availability of certain types of crude oil (heavy vs light, sweet vs sour) and demand for certain types of fuel. These changes result In more or less production of plastic precursors as a side effect.
Demand for plastic is almost entirely driven by the availability of the precursors, more supply means a lower price, means more uses for plastic become cost effective and displace other materials. They make far more money selling fuels than they do selling plastics. The margins on fuels are much higher as plastic requires additional inputs, additional manufacturing/processing, and additional marketing to be sold.
The fuel sales are effectively subsidizing the cost of plastic, as it would not be cost effective to produce on its own. Other, cheaper, and easier to manufacture materials would displace its uses if it wasn’t already being produced as a byproduct of fuel.
Thank you for clarifying!
So plastic use is standing on the shoulders of fuel production. Interesting to imagine what materials could emerge as the next default when the prices are not offset by waste disposal needs.