No Reducing Plastic Bag Reduces Oil

【Less Plastic Bag Means Less Oil ?】

  Raw material for petoroleum product such as plastic bag is the refining of crude oil.

  If we roughly list the purified oil in the order of their ease of “evaporation”, they look like this[note1].ーー

  ①Oil and Gas(most “evaporable”)
  ②Gasoline and Naphtha
  ③Kerosene
  ④Diesel oil
  ⑤Heavy oil and Asphalt

  The gasoline and the naphtha are colorless and clear. The former is colored orange to distinguish it from naptha and the like.

  Since the raw material for plastic bags is naphtha, one of the rationals for "The Plastic Bag Reduction Movement" is that if we reduce a great number of plastic bags and everyone carries "Eco-Bag", we will consume less oil and be more environmetally friendly.

  It is said that "marine debris" [note2]will also be reduced.

  But does the plastic bag reduction really lead to less oil consumption?

【Less Plastic Bag, More Unused Oil】

  Even if crude oil is refined, it cannot be made in the way that 100% of crude oil is converted into 100% gasoline.

  The proportions of the various types of refined oil(in technical term, yield) are roughly determined, such as this amount for kerosene and this amount for gas.

  The cold winter may increase the production of kerosene. But that is only to the exent that you can adjust yield to reduce gasoline by a few percent and increase kerosene by that much. Because of the nature of crude oil, you cannot change it in such a way as to increase the yield of gasoline to 90%.

  When you refine crude oil, you can get various types of fresh oil at a certain rate absolutely. Naturally, naphtha, the raw material for plastic bag, is also produced.

  Of course, if you cut back on a certain amount of plastic bags, you will get rid of those bags. If that happens, very poor sea turtles, fishes, and whales, who die because they drink or eat plastic bags, will survive.

  But as long as we continue to use oil at the same pace as before, even if we reduce or eradicate plastic bags, we will only get more unused naphtha. The excess naphtha will be used for other purposes, such as plastic bottles, clothes, and socks.
  If that happens, there will be no reduction in marine debris too.

【The Car Society Is Untouchable】

  The Japan's annual oil consumption is about 233 million kiloliters.The number of plastic bags consumed annually is about 30 billion bags.

  It takes between 8.2ml and 18.3ml of oil to produce one plastic bag of various sizes[note3], and if all 30 billion plastic bags are 13ml between them, that means that about 390,000kl of oil is used.This is about 0.16% of Japan's annual oil consumption.

  In reality, however, imports account for 70% of the total amount of plastic bags, and the domestic productions account for 30%[note4].
  So the percentage of Japan's annual oil consumption is only about 0.05%.

  In contrast, the percentage of gasoline consumed for automobiles is 22%.That is 440 times more than the plastic bag consumption[note5].

  Should we do something about the car society instead of bragging smugly eco-friendly my smart bag or eco-friendly self-made paper bag?

【Rethinking Modern Society】

  Reducing plastic bag will not reduce oil consumption, “as long as we continue to use oil at the same pace” we have been using it.

  That is why I think "The Plastic Bag Reduction Movement" is idle talk.

  There are some people who believe that Earth is not warming, but is cooling, and that the carbon dioxide warming theory is false.

  But if we really want to realize the intention of environmental protection, we need to focus on modern society and life that consumes a lot of oil.

  We need to change many things to reduce oil consumption.

[note1]

https://oil-info.ieej.or.jp/whats_sekiyu/1-11.html

[note2]
"Marine debris" is a generic term for "submarine debris", "drifting debris", and "drifted debris".

Submarine debris is submerged at the bottom of the ocean.

Drifting debris is drifting at sea or in the ocean.

Drifted debris has washed up on the shore.

[note3]

https://www.env.go.jp/recycle/yoki/c_1_questionnaire/pdf/h25/3_7_1.pdf

[note4]

https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/recycle/main/data/research/h20fy/200811-2_mri/200811-2_2.pdf

[note5]

https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/recycle/main/data/research/h20fy/200811-2_mri/200811-2_2.pdf