Pondering the plastic fork...

[Javaman]

As Peak oil is pretty much upon us, I am more aware of the millions if not billions of items and things around us that are manufactured and produced via oil.

This morning, as I was stopping into my local eatery to pick up a couple of bagels, I noticed, really noticed the tray that keeps the various utensils for food use.

The one that struck me more than the others was the fork. Plastic, ever present, innocuous, but necessary.

Sit for a moment and think of the millions if not billions of these little food tools that are produced daily and are taken completely for granted.

Now think of a situation, actually not far into our future, where suddenly, there are no more of them.

The convenience of having them is wonderful, but at the same time, they are completely wasteful and very polluting. Other than one meal or two (if you are the frugal type in your home) they add nothing to society other than land fill. And will be around for millions of years.

Now what would you say if you suddenly had to use a metal one? No problem right? Frankly, I love the idea. The concept of plastic anything has always turned me off, but given our societies obsession with plastic, it's hard to find alternatives for a lot of things.

However, the simple thing as replacing a plastic fork with metal one is such and amazingly simple thing to do.

And doing such a thing, actually would create a job. Suddenly, a dish washer would be needed in all establishments that used to use plastic utensils. Or even the creation of a industry that its soul purpose is to provide clean utensils daily to various eateries.

As the price of oil increases and it's supply decreases, there will be many subtle changes in our society, the vanishing of the plastic fork will be one of them. And not a moment to soon for me.

Just one of my kooky reflections.

[kiraboo]

1. A kooky thought perhaps, but a valid one.

I read once about the many uses of plastic in the healthcare industry. Much of what we consider "disposable" is plastic. In practical terms plastic has made our life simpler. Aesthetically, I wouldn't mind if it disappeared forever.

[MADem]

2. Fast food joints will likely change their menu first, rather than hire a

dishwasher. It'll all be finger food, stuff that you can pick up with your hands and cram in your mouth. You'll have to squeeze out your condiments, and use the packet itself to spread them on your meal, or perhaps go with a crappy, deforesting wooden paddle as a substitute.

Theft of metal forks will become a problem, so you'll only see those in sit-down eateries.

It could get to the point where some genius will manufacture a Swiss Army-type untensil, and everyone will carry their own fork, knife and spoon, like they used to in olden times. Maybe they'll combine the fork and spoon into the oft-reviled 'spork' to save space.

This utensil WILL be confiscated at airports!

[Javaman]

3. "hand over the spork, or you're under arrest!!!"

Beat it, it's the spork squad!!! LOL

[Javaman]

5. I completely agree with you...

They will cut overhead before hiring someone new. But what does become clear is, just how ever present these plastic forks are. Someone did a sort of pictorial representation of plastic chairs and how a certain type can be literally found everywhere on earth. In some of the most bizarre and hard to reach locals. And that is just a chair.

But when you think of a plastic fork, they are everywhere. Even places that aren't fast food eateries.

I occasionally eat at Whole Paycheck (whole foods) and for a company that is "environmentally conscious" they have an awful lot of plastic everywhere. But they try to disguise this fact by saying the plastic they use is recyclable. That's completely disingenuous. A portion of the items they sell are packaged in recyclable containers but a great many aren't. And as a glaring point, they also use the ever present plastic fork.

I do like your idea of the swiss army food utensil (SAFU) LOL "I've got my SAFU, do you?" "save the planet and SAFU!" LOL

Sorry I sometimes go off on tangents.

Thanks for your reply. :)

[flamin lib]

4. I cannot foresee a time when a need for petroleum will not

exist. Your thoughts on the humble plastic fork bring to mind other applications that won't be so easy to replace. Lubricants for machinery, plastic moldings for durable goods and certain applications for very high density energy like jet fuel.

The largest use of fossil fuels is energy generation and that's where we need to begin but the mundane things like packaging and convenience items bear scrutiny. How about paper envelopes for CDs? Envelopes made from recycled paper? How about re-thinking all packaging?

At what point will it be feasible to recover the hydrocarbons in non-recyclable plastics? What breakthrough in technology will make it possible to economically convert the plastics back to basic building blocks?

Reminds me of a speech I heard back in the early '60s. "We will put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade. We will do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard . . ." We need a new Apollo project to become the new source of world wide energy.

Until then, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

[Javaman]

7. I'm right there with you...

I was just stating an observation on mundane things that people take for granted now and will probably be gone in the future.

This is the first of many mini essay's I will have on this topic.

As far as repackaging items in something other than plastic, I have been writing about this for a while now. I am completely aghast at the complete waste of resources, space, energy and time that goes into the manufacture of totally wasteful packaging.

I have noticed over time, that there is a few responsible CD and DVD producers that are 1) replacing the paper packaging with paper and 2)shrinking the size of their packaging to fit only the item and not all additional unnecessary space around it. Also, I work at a company that receives a lot of packages, I have noticed the absence of "packing peanuts" in favor of recycled cardboard or recycled egg crates.

I too hope for the day that a process of re-polymerizing plastic happens. I have read on certain processes that are currently happening, but all still requires a certain amount of raw material to bind the recycled plastic together. I find that interesting.

During the 2004 run up to the presidential election. I wrote a piece on here, that went along the same lines as what Kennedy once said, that we as a nation need a challenge. Something that reawakens our spirit of invention, exploration and our responsibility to the world. I think there was a truly golden opportunity for that to happen. I wrote letter after letter to the Kerry/Edwards campaign, saying basically, challenge us! Give us something to do as a nation! We can take it, we want it, we yearn for it! Nothing but standard, thank you replies. I know they were busy, but other than the really weak slogan, "we can do better", I never once saw that fire in their eyes to get us moving.

My hope is that Gore runs. I think he has that potential.

[flamin lib]

12. People still don't understand the importance of big projects.

Apollo wasn't about bringing a few rocks back from the Moon. It was about figuring out how to do something that has never been done. That project spawned the computer industry and created a whole new economy.

The Super Colliding Super Conductor would have done the same thing had the shortsighted congress critters not killed it. I called on that location when there was nothing but theoretical physicists thinking deep thoughts. Before the first shovel of dirt was moved great improvements in magnetic imaging were accomplished.

The country NEEDS a new Apollo or Manhattan project. Not because it's easy but because it's hard to do something that has never been done. It's about not knowing what new technology can be created and what it will spin off to.

NASA gives it's patents away to anyone who has an applcation.

[phantom power]

15. Hear! Hear!

[Dead_Parrot]

16. ...Plastic hearing aid... nt

[phantom power]

6. It's the old question...

Where does the energy enter the system? If I wash dishes, that represents resources used as well, in the form of energy and water. When I recycle a can, I wash it out with water. Which is, itself a valuable and increasingly scarce resource.

Ultimately, I think the right move can only be towards putting the energy into sustainable resource cycles, but that will involve spending large amounts of energy that we currently aren't spending. Something to ponder.

[Javaman]

9. of course...

Everything we do requires energy. But my point is, when the various little things that we take for granted start disappearing, there will be things needed to replace them. And as a result will probably create new jobs not thought of in the past or old jobs returning.

but given your pondering thoughts, when plastic disappears, how would you replace it? Meaning, there will always be a need for eating utensils. There will always be restaurants. Granted, more than likely not on the scale we have now. Metal to me is the only viable replacement for utensils. Yes, it takes energy to make them and water to clean them, but how do you get around that?

[phantom power]

11. That's just it, you don't get around it...

If we run out of energy, and/or water, there will simply be fewer things like utensils. Or, perhaps we keep utensils and do without other things, like cars.

I suppose the question beneath my question is: in the coming Troubles, how far down Maslow's hierarchy shall we fall? Fall far enough, and it's no longer about fewer forks or cars, it starts to become fewer humans.

I'm somewhat agnostic about how far we will fall. We're in a very tight, chaotic nexus of history. Technology is enabling us to do things that truly start to seem magical, and at the proverbial exponential rate, and yet at the same time we are bringing disasters down upon ourselves that haven't been experienced in human history.

What the outcome of that collision will be, seems impossible to predict. Everything from total extinction to eventual star-faring civilization seems on the table. For that matter, none of the possible outcomes are mutually exclusive. A true historic singularity.

It would be quite exhilarating to witness. From a safe distance, that is. It's brown-trousers time for all of us taking the ride.

That's quite a lot of subtext, for a fork. But there it is.

[Javaman]

13. Yeah, you are right on the money...

I am hopeful even with the downgrading of the American society has had in the last 6 years that there are still brilliant enough people out there to at least slow the fall to the point where we can catch ourselves. It's the free fall that scares hell out of me.

Have you ever read the Foundation series? The times ahead remind me of that book.

[phantom power]

14. Yes, and I keep hoping that it's all secretly guided by god-like robots...

who are physically incapable of doing anything not in our absolute best interest. And yet, somehow I think not :-)

[Dead_Parrot]

23. I can't help thinking we should have a "Foundation" or two...

Build a few structures like the Norwegian seed depository, but filled with some choice picks from our knowledge - science, history, literature... Sealed up for anyone who needs them in 1000 years.

(The ol' Helmet of Doom is working well today) :)

[brokensymmetry]

18. I expect fewer humans - a lot fewer.

I guess I am a doomer. I look at the various challenges,
I consider how we're handling things - and I see little
to encourage me.

Just like plasticware - the drive for lower costs and
greater convenience trumps everything else. But they
aren't really lower cost - in classic tragedy of the
commons style, they transfer the costs from one entity
to society at large.

And, too, society seems dead set against solutions.
As was pointed out, carrying a metal spork onto an
airplane is forbidden. That same mindset applies
elsewhere.

Still, an excellent thread. I'll look forward to
your other postings.

[phantom power]

19. I agree, our bad choices may undo us, if nothing else does.

That's what sucks the life force out of me. We're capable of such great things, and yet we fuck things up so thoroughly, and frequently.

I've learned enough from this forum to be confident that our biggest problems have solutions. And using existing technology, not hypothetical stuff. But if we wait too long, what we could do doesn't count any more. It's too late to start making a parachute after the plane breaks down.

It may be we've already waited too long. The only thing I'm pretty sure of is that we'll all know within my lifetime.

[dcfirefighter]

30. What are our limiting factors

for producing the things we need?

Labor - not really, we've got more people than we know what to do with. Educating and training them is a different story, but not insurmountable.

Capital - not really, we can always build more capital. We just Labor and Land to build it with. And a means to induce Labor to provide it's service, and a means to designate what Land can be used for which purposes. Generally we use money for all this. We can (and do, sort of) print money as we need it. Unfortunately, we lend money into circulation, and allow private banks to collect interest (which hasn't been created yet) on the newly created loan money. A better method would be to spend money into circulation (by the government on public projects) at a closely controlled non-inflationary rate.

Land - not just square feet and acres, but air, water, minerals, oil, etc. It's only available in fixed quantities, and most of it's value is derived from factors external to ownership and investment. This is THE limiting factor, and it is critical to find means of allocating this factor to highest and best use (so as to maximise the use of Labor and Capital, and minimize 'wasted' Land)

Allodial ownership hasn't really worked (witness most of the world), and centralized planning didn't really work in those countries that practiced that: USSR and China, both of which, environmentally, are trashed.

The means I propose is to recognize that access Land is a common right, but that it's exclusive use is vital for production - we can't have people building houses on fields used for cropland by someone else. The trick is to reconcile the multiple competing mutually exclusive uses for land by requiring those who use or hold Land (in all its forms) to compensate those people whom they exclude.

Practically, this means 'renting' at current rates, all natural resources from the government. More practically, this means paying a property tax based on the value of the Land you own. Fortunately, 1) this is a lot of money, more than we need to run our governments and 2) most of this value is held by a surprisingly small fraction of society - the distribution of this wealth is incredibly inequitable.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. In a hundred years we will be mining landfills to recover plastic forks,

among other things, to be broken down and reconstitued into the oil-base they came from.

[Javaman]

10. There was an article here on DU sometime ago on just that topic...

Stating that landfills will become the mining resource of the future.

All I have to say is, I hope so and why not start now.

[Dead_Parrot]

17. Not a job for the faint hearted

All sorts of toxic shit gets dumped into landfills as well as useful stuff. But yes, they're going to be the goldmines of the late 21st century.

How are the mighty fallen... :(

[Kolesar]

20. Oil is replaceable for energy, but not replaceable for Ag. chemicals

I recall that from Gelbspan or Rifkin.

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Might be a question for NNadir...

I recall him saying there wasn't anything oil-based he could think of that couldn't be manufactured pretty much from atmospheric CO2 and hydrogen from water (gives you a basic hydrocarbon gas as a feedstock), but my chem. isn't up to that. :dunce:

[dcfirefighter]

29. Ag chemicals are only necessary

if you keep labor and capital artificially expensive vs. holding land.

There's very little that can't be grown 'organically' with higher yields per acre than petrochemical agriculture.

Replace pesticide covered monocrops with diverse cropped ecologies, with predatory insects & animals to control insect populations, and healthy plants to fight infestation.

Replace petrochemical derived fertilizers with closed loop green manuring and, again, a diverse crop selection.

[htuttle]

22. Ever seen an old Soviet soda machine?

They had a shared, communal glass. Into this glass shot selzter and syrup -- kind of like an auto-soda-fountain. You could either buy just selzer, or both selzer and syrup. There was a water jet built in to clean the glass as well.

No cans, no bottles. However, most would agree that unless the glass could be washed really well, it was kind of gross. Also, there was only one glass, usually, so lines might form.

They imported bottled Pepsi, too, but I believe it was much more expensive. I'm also pretty sure the bottle deposit was fairly high (remember 'bottle deposits'? Why don't we have those anymore?) When people bought bottled beer in this country back in the pre-petroleum age, didn't they usually bring the empty bottles back to the bar/brewer for refills?

Just thinking about disposables in general...

[Kolesar]

28. Those guys knew how to live! . .. ... eom ... .. .

[NMDemDist2]

24. people will start carrying their own foldable cutlery

some will be Designer Styles and very chichi I'm sure!

[Not Sure]

25. The answer is chopsticks

Bring your own el-cheapo variety, the really fancy ones, or break off a couple twigs from a tree outside.

Good point, though. I totally agree with your point about waste. When I receive packages in the mail, I keep and reuse the boxes and packing material.

I collect/build model trains, which are mostly made from injection molded plastic. I often ponder this subject and wonder what will be the next material they will be made from when plastic is too precious...

Oh, and "Whole Paycheck" - I have to remember that one! So true!

[Bruden]

26. good idea

[Dead_Parrot]

27. Only up to a point...

see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=46891

Nothing's ever straightforward. :(

[hunter]

31. The synthesis of polyethylene from ethanol is straightforward.

It's also been done on industrial scales.

Other plastics can also be made from ethanol.

It seems to me this is a more likely use for ethanol than as a widespread fuel.

[Javaman]

32. That's actually a really interesting point, imagine if you will

if we had used oil only as fuel and ethanol was used for plastics.