Making Greener Plastics... potentially good idea?

Really interesting article here, it seems that there might be a way to make plastics slightly more environmentally friendly (and if this idea does work, our entire petrochemical industry might be shakened up) It seems this company is able to incorporate 50% CO2 (Carbon dioxide) to make plastics. Right now plastics are made from various petrochemicals like ethylene, propylene etc etc So there is actually no CO2 involved (until you burn the plastic that is).

While nothing too fancy or too large scale, this seems to be a critical step in the right direction. However we must also take note about how energy intensive such processes are, might not be good if as huge amount of energy is required to make this greener plastic.


Check it out here (Source: sciencentral.com):

Whether concerned about global warming or not, many of us are trying to reduce our fossil fuel consumption thanks to the high price of gasoline. Now, Cornell University chemist Geoffrey Coates is trying to do the same for the plastics industry. He developed a way to replace up to 50 percent of the petroleum-based ingredients in plastics with recycled carbon dioxide—making them not only greener, but also potentially cheaper.... [full story]