If oil is a limited resource and plastic comes from oil,how are we not facing a plastic shortage?

Question

If oil is a limited resource and plastic comes from oil,how are we not facing a plastic shortage?

In: 23

Answer 1

Plastic is a by-product of oil refining, which makes it very cheap because there’s an awful lot of it. It’s essentially a waste product from the refining process.

We aren’t facing a plastic shortage, because we aren’t facing an oil shortage either. Eventually when humans stop using oil, we’ll need to develop alternative ways of making plastics – for example, you can make plastics out of corn starch