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Politics : Sioux Nation
DJT 13.77-3.8%Dec 26 9:30 AM EST
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To: Ron who wrote (330727)9/13/2020 2:44:57 PM
From: Elroy Jetson  Read Replies (2) of 361973
 
Being pedantic, plastics are made from ethylene gas, a hormone plants create naturally to induce ripening. Hydrate the molecule with water and it becomes ethanol - drinking alcohol.

Place ethylene under pressure in the presence of a catalyst, and the gas made by plants becomes a solid plastic resin.
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Ethylene gas can be made inexpensively by mixing natural gas or naptha with high temperature steam, which breaks the molecules and recombines them into ethylene gas.

In a world without natural gas, plastics would most likely be made by heating partially distilled sugar or grain-based alcohol to the same higher temperature to create ethylene gas. This would be more expensive and less environmentally friendly, but the same result is the same.

What we need is a law which requires most plastics to be made biodegradable - a currently available and inexpensive technology.
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