Getting That Extra Mile Out of Plastic

HONG KONG - Six decades ago, plastic erupted onto the world stage. By now, life without it is almost unthinkable.

The trouble is that most plastic, once used, ends up in landfills or in the environment. My colleague Mark McDonald and I have written about plastic pollution here and here.

What to do?

One approach is to try to live with less plastic. Beth Terry in the United States and Sandra Krautwaschl in Austria have tried to live without plastic, and have written eloquently about their experiences.

Another approach is to try to create some value out of waste plastic.

Many types of plastic can be recycled and converted into new products - vacuum cleaner casings, for example. Check out this piece for information about an initiative that was presented at the earth summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro this year.

Even the so-called “end-of-life plastic” that cannot be recycled has value. Most plastic is, after all, petroleum-based and can be distilled into fuel.

As I write in this piece, Jeremy Rowsell, a Briton who lives in Australia, is trying to hammer home this message in the next few months, by flying a plane halfway round the world using fuel distilled from plastic waste by a company called Cynar.

Mr. Rowsell is capitalizing on the fact that aviation captivates people's imagination. (He is not the only one to recognize the special messaging power of flight: My colleague Nicola Clark has written here about the Solar Impulse plan to fly a plane around the world on solar power.)

But proving a concept via flight is not just about the sheer sex appeal of aviation, for if a technology can manage the challenges of flight, says Mr. Rowsell, it is likely to work in less challenging circumstances and in less sophisticated vehicles - with tuk tuks in India, say.

Meanwhile, check out this delightful video, by PlasticsEurope, explaining why plastic is “too valuable to be thrown away.”