Gasoline or Indoor Plumbing… I’ll take the crapper.

Petroleum is the basic building block in a lot of products, not the least of which is gasoline and plastic. What pisses me off about the kerfluffle with oil, what makes me extremely acerbic though is the truth that once easy oil becomes a thing of the past - so does easy plumbing. But most people don’t bother to think about things like that. They correlate oil as gasoline. But its so much more than that.

Imagine everything in your refrigerator. Now imagine it not in a plastic container. Imagine all the dishes in your cupboard. Take away the plastic. Hell, check out your computer. Think you could have that without plastic?

Now look, I’ll be honest. Plastic has its environmental drawbacks - just as bad as vehicle emissions and burning coal for electricity. And not every plastic is based on petroleum. The sad fact is that most of the more common varieties of plastic are based on petroleum - that’s what keeps them relatively cheap. Moreover, though advances in plastics on the whole are being seen, the new types of plastics aren’t now, and probably won’t ever be, products that are feasible for more than limited usage.

Recycling plastic is difficult too, but at least it is partially self-renewable. And that’s the core of my bitterness. Instead of spending money and research to find a way to recycle more types of plastic more cleanly and efficiently, the American people and the US Gov’t would rather spend money (or allow it to be spent) to grease the wheels and keep the flow of oil for fuel uninterrupted. Yes, we fucked ourselves with urban sprawl to the point that probably ninety percent of America needs a car in order to hold gainful employment. It sucks. That said, I’d rather cut off oil for fuel and keep so many of the plastics that are such a part of my life - than watch all of that disappear when easy oil becomes a thing of the past.

I’d rather flush the toilet than drive to work. No PVC, no pipes, no plumbing. I can - though it would take a while - bicycle to work. I can’t go back to an outhouse.