Plastics: What do diamonds and plastics have in common? (Part 1/3)
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Speaker 1:My name is Zeva Koleson, Head of Marketing for the Americas. And with me, I'm Michelle Krenzer, Global Head of Energy and Nicholas, a young and curious 6th grader that are both returning to our podcast. They were both recently featured on the channel for our series on Hydrogen that you can find on the channel. Today's topic is one that everyone can relate to as we're launching a new series dedicated to plastics. To kick off this series, our first episode will be dedicated to answering the question as to what diamonds have in common with plastics.
Speaker 1:Intriguing, right? Michel, welcome back to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you again. Perhaps you can briefly introduce yourself again and explain to us why you're so interested in this topic of plastics. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me again on the podcast. I've had an interest in plastics since university, particularly after an internship at Bayer in Leverkusen, Germany, one of the largest innovation centers for plastics. I found the science of it, the versatility, and the endless number of applications fascinating.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Michel. Before we start, let's listen to a short extract of an interview of Nicholas, our 6th grader, to get his views as a young 11 year old on plastics.
Speaker 3:Plastic is made from chemicals that could be harmful to the human body and animals' bodies because it's an unnatural substance. And plastic, when it's made, the oil that emits the fumes goes into the air and traps heat on earth. If you go to a grocery store and you buy packages with food in them, usually they're wrapped in plastic or they're in a plastic container. Sometimes they serve your meals in plastic trays or stuff that gets thrown away as soon as you use it. The impact on the environment is mostly when it's made.
Speaker 3:The smoke goes in the air, and some of the smoke is methane, and that traps a lot of heat. When we throw it on our neighborhood's backyard or wherever we throw it out on grass, it just doesn't decompose. It'll take 1,000 of years. Another reason why it's bad for the environment is because it kills animals when they eat it and meat animals. Like, wolves won't have any deer left to eat, so then they will die off.
Speaker 3:We should just try to invent thing that we use plastic for that aren't made by plastic, that has another version of it that is made by plastic, and then we just use the one that's not plastic. Another thing is we could just stop making them, and then people won't buy. The more expensive plastic gets, the less people will want to buy plastic. Yeah. It's one of those big debates about how much plastic is good enough to use and how much is unsafe.
Speaker 1:Nicholas, you're with us today. Welcome back. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us on this interview.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me, and I'm looking forward to the discussion with Michelle today. It feels like a great opportunity to learn more on the topic.
Speaker 1:Michel, what are your reactions to the extract we just heard?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not surprised by your comments, Nicolas, as public opinion today is consistently negative towards plastics, especially because of ocean pollution and microplastics. Although it is recognized that plastics overall do more good than harm.
Speaker 3:I would love to be convinced about that. I'd like to understand why you are comparing diamonds and plastics. Can you explain what they have in common? I see diamonds as a polar opposite in my view.
Speaker 2:Yes. I understand. This might seem provocative and intriguing, but in fact, they both have very high carbon content in common. Did you know that diamond is actually made of 100% carbon? And that plastics are about 80% carbon.
Speaker 2:Even trees contain 50% carbon. So the choice of my comparison was to introduce the fact that there are good sides to plastics, even very valuable sides of plastics, and try and keep a balanced view. Think about your comfortable trainers you use when you run, parachute that keep you from crashing, medical applications, and so on. With a unique range of properties, plastic play an important part in cutting edge technologies used in the space program, in bulletproof vests, prosthetic limbs, hard valves, and many more.
Speaker 3:I guess I didn't think of it that way, and I had no idea of what it was made of. But I thought carbon was bad.
Speaker 2:Yes. You're right. Carbon also, especially these days, has a very bad name. Everyone talks about decarbonization and low carbon solutions, but this is completely misleading. We're not trying to remove carbon from the earth.
Speaker 2:It's actually carbon dioxide, otherwise known as c o 2 that is harmful. It's not the same thing at all.
Speaker 3:I would like to understand a little more about this. Could you clarify? I'm a bit confused.
Speaker 2:Okay. Let's go back to the beginning, the table of elements. You know one of the 100 or so elements that make up the universe is carbon, element number 6 in the table with the symbol c. Do you remember from previous podcast number 1 in the table, the lightest of elements?
Speaker 3:I believe it's hydrogen. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. Well done. The second most abundant in the universe is Helium. The third is oxygen, and the 4th most abundant is carbon.
Speaker 3:You mean carbon is not bad for the environment?
Speaker 2:Well, carbon itself is not an issue. Carbon means life. Without carbon, there's no life. The carbon that is in fossil fuels was previously in France. Did you know that the human body itself is made of oxygen, about 65%, carbon 18%, and hydrogen?
Speaker 2:Carbon has unique chemical properties with the ability to build very complex molecules, like for example plastics. Plastics themselves are not the issue. The issue is the misuse of plastic. If they were properly recycled and used sustainably, the ocean pollution, microplastics would not exist and we would appreciate the services delivered by plastics. Have you heard about DNA?
Speaker 3:Yes. Absolutely. I know that DNA are cells in your body that make the way you look.
Speaker 2:Yes. It's actually a molecule that contains the genetic code that is unique to every individual, and we have billions in our bodies. Well, DNA is made of a combination of just 5 elements. Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and hydrogen. And carbon constitutes the structure of complex molecules like DNA.
Speaker 3:So what is the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide?
Speaker 2:The issue with carbon or carbon containing molecules, including plastics or fossil fuels, is that when burned, they produce carbon dioxide or CO2, which is released in the atmosphere. And as CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it causes global warming and climate change.
Speaker 3:Okay. You compare plastics to diamonds, but plastic still has properties that are bad for the environment.
Speaker 2:Plastic has a number of issues. The main environmental issue and reason why it has a bad name is ocean pollution. In addition, its supply chain and production generates greenhouse gas emissions, as you rightly pointed out earlier. However, plastics also help the energy transition with wind turbine blades, lighter vehicles, membranes for electrolyzers, batteries, building insulation and many other useful applications. That would be difficult to replace with other materials not containing plastics.
Speaker 3:I had no idea. So what could we do then to keep the good sides of plastics?
Speaker 2:Well, several things we can do. 1st, produce plastics without emitting greenhouse gases. And there are solutions being developed for this. We'll come to that later. 2nd, recycle as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Today, less than 10% of plastics are recycled, with 12% incinerated and the remaining 79% landing in our oceans and landfills, where scientists predict it will take more than 500 years to biodegrade. 3rd is to be more selective with the use of single plastics, prioritizing high value applications. And 4th, there's research into bioplastics, plastics that have a lower carbon footprint or biodegradable, recyclable, etcetera. How does that sound?
Speaker 3:Good to know there are solutions. But I heard about this plastic island in the ocean. What is that?
Speaker 2:Yes. It's called a vortex in the Pacific Ocean, apparently the size of Texas. The problem is that it can take 100 of years to degrade plastics.
Speaker 3:So it seems like we need to recycle a lot more.
Speaker 2:Yes. I think that's key. The recycling rate for plastics is below 10%, as I mentioned, and as far below the recycling rates for paper, which is 58%, and iron and seal, 70 to 90%.
Speaker 3:It seems easier said than done.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I agree. It's hard to change behaviors, but the benefits could be immense.
Speaker 3:And there are health concerns too. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. The reputation of plastics has changed since the sixties. There are concerns regarding additives to plastics that are used to improve their properties, like durability, flexibility, etcetera. BPA, for example. And that's why many packagings are now advertised as BPA free.
Speaker 2:Or, palates are also used as additives and are causing health concerns.
Speaker 3:Michel, could we go back to the basics for a minute so that I can understand what are plastics?
Speaker 2:Yes. Of course. Let's start from the beginning. The word plastic comes from the Greek and means something that is capable of being molded or shaped.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes. I go to a Greek school and the word is plastiko.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Well, plastics are large molecules called polymers and they consist of chains of repeating smaller molecules called monomers. Polymers are made of very long carbon chains. The process of combining these monomers using chemical processing is called polymerization.
Speaker 3:Do you find similar molecules in nature?
Speaker 2:Yes. Polymers abound in nature. Cellulose, the material that makes up the cell walls of plants, is a very common natural polymer. Synthetic polymers are often much longer than those found in nature.
Speaker 3:So why are plastics so widely used?
Speaker 2:They have very interesting properties. They are light, low cost, versatile, strong, hard or soft, flexible. They can be heat resistant. They conduct electricity or not and many other properties. They can be molded also at temperatures below 300 degrees.
Speaker 3:And there are different types of plastics, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And that's why they're so versatile. Each type of plastic family has a different chemical formula. And within the family, properties vary depending on the length of the chains, the arborescence of the chains, and so on. You can also mix units.
Speaker 2:And finally, you can blend different types of polymers.
Speaker 3:Okay. I think I get it. They have incredibly useful properties, and that's why they change their lives. But they are harmful to the environment.
Speaker 2:Yes. Most consumer goods are sent to landfills and incineration plants. Each year, at least 8,000,000 tons of plastics leak into the ocean, which is equivalent to 1 garbage truck into the ocean every minute. It's estimated that there are 150,000,000 tons of plastics in the ocean today. And the ocean is expected to contain 1 ton of plastics for every 3 tons of fish by 2,005 and by 2,050 there'll be more plastics than fish by weight.
Speaker 3:How did we get there?
Speaker 2:When we think of plastic as a 20th century material, natural plastics such as animal horn or tortoise shell, amber, rubber, etcetera, have been worked with since antiquity. Naturally occurring plastics from gum trees to create rubber balls were used in Mexico 3,500 years ago. Animal horns, malleable when heated were used for many purposes and products from medallions to cutlery, combs, and so on.
Speaker 3:How about man made plastics?
Speaker 2:The first successful man made plastic was celluloid invented in the US in 18/70. It was made from cotton and wood, natural products, mixed with nitric and sulfuric acid and other components. This new plastic was cheap, flexible, transparent, waterproof, and so on, and made items like combs and billiard balls affordable to many more people, democratizing consumer goods and culture. In 18/89, George Eastman patented photographic film for the Kodak camera and his greatest application was cinema film, but also sunglasses. Blow molding, a process for making hollow items from celluloid tubes, was an important development leading to the mass production of millions of inexpensive toys, ornaments, hair combs, eyeglasses, and of course, ping pong balls.
Speaker 3:That's interesting. What happened after that
Speaker 2:though? Well, in the 20th century, we saw a revolution in plastic production. The advent of entirely synthetic plastic. The first one, Bacallite, was discovered in 1907, combined 2 chemicals formaldehyde and phenol under heat and pressure. Baculite sparked a consumer boom in affordable and desirable products.
Speaker 2:It had the dark brown wood like appearance with a good electrical insulator, but could be easily mass produced, making it ideal for bringing new design trends to the masses with some iconic example like the GPO telephone or the echo radio.
Speaker 3:Does bacollete still exist? It sounds old fashioned.
Speaker 2:You're right. Other plastics were invented during the 20th century. In 1932, ICI, a British chemical company, discovered perspex, a transparent plastic that is still produced today under different names. In 1933, ICI again discovered polyethylene or PE due to a failed experiment. And it's now the most widely produced plastic.
Speaker 3:And nylon?
Speaker 2:Yes. DuPont researchers famously discovered nylon and it became a quick success in the 19 thirties. It is best known for women's stockings. And during World War 2, it was almost exclusively used for parachutes, courts, and tents. It was later used in clothing and fashion.
Speaker 3:How about Teflon?
Speaker 2:Yes. Another famous polymer, Teflon or PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, was discovered accidentally by a chemist working for DuPont in 1938. It's most famous, of course, for coating non stick pans and has many other applications like, an additive to lubricants, protective coatings, and so on.
Speaker 3:How about plastic bottles?
Speaker 2:Yes. Good question. PET, polyethylene terephthalat, was invented in 1973. It's very strong, light, and resistant to the pressure of carbonated drinks. And today, more than 400,000,000,000 bottles are produced every year and used for a short time.
Speaker 3:And then it developed. Right?
Speaker 2:Yes. Bacallite and other polymers were produced industrially. And by 1950, the production was only 2,000,000 tons per year, and it then grew exponentially.
Speaker 3:What is the production today?
Speaker 2:Today, about 450,000,000 tons. Divided by 8,000,000,000, the world population, that's about 56 kilos of plastics per person per year.
Speaker 3:And in the future?
Speaker 2:I've seen forecasts indicating that the production could triple by 2050.
Speaker 3:What do we use all that plastic for?
Speaker 2:Packaging is the main application with about 35% of volumes, followed by building and construction materials, about 15%, textiles, transportation. Cars have an average 125 kilos of plastic, including seats, carpets, dashboards, tires, then consumer goods, shoes, electronics, and so on.
Speaker 3:How much for single use then?
Speaker 2:About a third of plastics are for single use.
Speaker 3:So can we replace plastics?
Speaker 2:It's impossible to go through the day without using and touching something made of plastic. I mean, your toothbrush, your phone, your computer, your bank card, your helmet, the packaging around the food you buy, and so on. So it would be difficult to replace plastics.
Speaker 3:I noticed on plastic containers that there are numbers. How come?
Speaker 2:Look at the back of your cup or plastic container. You will usually see a number with a triangular symbol like PE or PP or PS or number from 1 through 7. And these universal recycling symbols were launched more than 50 years ago.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes. I see PP or PS on my containers too. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:The most common plastics in all the tons produced annually are low density polyethylene, that's LDPE, high density polyethylene, HDPE. And you might see these acronyms. Polyphthalamine, PPA, polypropylene, PP, polystyrene, PS, polyethylene, Terephthalate, mentioned before, PET, polycarbonate, PC, and polyurethane, PU.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of Ps.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's P for polymer.
Speaker 3:How are they manufactured?
Speaker 2:Today, plastics are mainly derived from a fraction of crude oil called naphtha, which is produced in refineries and from natural gas. In both cases, hydrocarbons are heated in the presence of steam and catalyst to very high temperatures, necessitating huge furnaces. And these so called crackers produce ethylene, propylene and other components that are monomers, the building blocks of polymers. And the next stage consists in polymerizing these monomers in large industrial plants into pallets of polymers. These will be heated and molded into final products.
Speaker 1:Michel and Nicolas, I'm sure there's still a lot of questions on plastic, but we'll have to stop for today. But thank you very much to both of you for joining us and for diving together into this complex topic. Nicholas, would you like to say a few concluding words on what you've learned today?
Speaker 3:Yes. Thank you, Michelle, for teaching me all of this. I've learned so much today. It really intrigued me that I learned that not all carbon is bad. It is just c o two, carbon dioxide.
Speaker 3:It also fascinates me that indeed diamonds and plastic are made up of the same matter.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Nicholas. On our side, we will continue the conversation on plastic with Michelle in a part 2 episode soon speaking about technical solutions, the role of insurers, risk analysis and other topics. So please stay tuned for more soon. Thank you for listening to us today. You can subscribe to the SCORE Innovation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite platform, and be our 1st listener to new releases.
Speaker 1:Stay tuned, and see you at the next episode.