Would you pay more for a car if all (most) of its plastic came from recycled sources.

How much more would you pay for a new vehicle if all of its plastic was from recycled sources?

  • $0

    Votes: 7 77.8%
  • Up to $500

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • Up to $1000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Up to $2000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Up to $3000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $3000+

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    9

Thread Starter

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
I was at a conference this week and and one presentation was about recycled vs landfilling plastics. One presenter showed how much more expensive it is to recycle plastics vs using virgin petroleum to make new plastics. Recycled materials must be disassembled, sorted, transported, and recompounded into new materials. The argument was that most consumers won't pay extra for a car made of plastics that are rescued from landfills.

Please vote.

All comments appreciated as well.
 
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shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
When working for Delphi -Packard, they had a plant dedicated to making Nylon pellets for our injection molds. The bought trimmings from sneaker makers and recycled them by melting and extruding into pellets. Did other scraps to pellets too but can only remember the nylon.
 

panic mode

Joined Oct 10, 2011
2,715
i agree.... $0

all these schemes "pay more for a product to make it greener" are just BS and excuse to charge someone more.
if product is not good for whatever reason (in this case use of material), it is time to rethink it. nobody says there has to be any plastics in a car. if plastics are bad, do not use plastics. i am not paying more for someone's lack of creativity. you want to do it - do it right, substitute all plastics and i mean all - wire insulation too. use glass, ceramic, fiberglass, tree bark, whatever. do your job and stop pushing the responsibility to consumers and gauging them. market place is all about efficiency and bringing cost down.

another example of complete BS is paper straws. they just don't work. they are soggy after 15 seconds. so i use my own metal one. and the companies that offer them stop at the straw - because that is what they can get away with. here is a Canadian icon Tim Hortons and the popular iced coffee. the straw wars replaced to paper version. the cup and lid are still plastic and the straw melts long before one is done with the drink. just plain stupid... the stupid zombies only think about continued use of the artificial materials that are the problem. how about cup made out of paper? how about making the cup without lid or with paper lid? or how about simply bringing own drink container and just having it refilled?

so... what is it in the car that need to be made out of plastic and why?


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panic mode

Joined Oct 10, 2011
2,715
a good way to handle plastic crisis is to stop making more of it. or at least slap huge taxes and import fees on it. $100 per gram for example. then everyone will think really hard about substitutes. but as long as one get nylon or PVC nut or washer for $0.05 things are not going to change.

what is the real reason my swiss army knife comes with plastic instead of metal sides? yes i know they also have version that is all metal but everywhere you look are the red plastic ones.

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Thread Starter

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
i agree.... $0

all these schemes "pay more for a product to make it greener" are just BS and excuse to charge someone more.
if product is not good for whatever reason (in this case use of material), it is time to rethink it. nobody says there has to be any plastics in a car. if plastics are bad, do not use plastics. i am not paying more for someone's lack of creativity. you want to do it - do it right, substitute all plastics and i mean all - wire insulation too. use glass, ceramic, fiberglass, tree bark, whatever. do your job and stop pushing the responsibility to consumers and gauging them. market place is all about efficiency and bringing cost down.

another example of complete BS is paper straws. they just don't work. they are soggy after 15 seconds. so i use my own metal one. and the companies that offer them stop at the straw - because that is what they can get away with. here is a Canadian icon Tim Hortons and the popular iced coffee. the straw wars replaced to paper version. the cup and lid are still plastic and the straw melts long before one is done with the drink. just plain stupid... the stupid zombies only think about continued use of the artificial materials that are the problem. how about cup made out of paper? how about making the cup without lid or with paper lid? or how about simply bringing own drink container and just having it refilled?

so... what is it in the car that need to be made out of plastic and why?


View attachment 268512
Some good points. To answer some questions. I'm not pro or anti plastic. I just follow data. I've been working on a project with some other semiretired engineers to see if it has legs and some of our market research is that plastic will not likely be eliminated from a vehicle but it may change. I'm looking to see if there is money in the change process.

- drilling for oil is much more efficient (energy-wise) than mining metals or cutting logs to get paper. Way less energy to get it to market.
- manufacturing efficiency is very high for forming plastic into a part vs casting metal or glass and vs machining metal. Most plastic parts are injection molded in a few seconds at relatively low temperature. Stamping steel into a shape is fairly energy efficient and is still the preferred way to form a part and justifies using steel over other materials in many cases.
- plastic is lightweight and reduces the weight of s car vs glass or metal - every time the car is accelerated from stop or driven up a hill, energy is saved over the life of the vehicle because of the weight savings of using plastics.
- plastic and foams are way more comfortable to sit on than steel or paper or glass.
- plastic has good physical properties for safety. The interior of a vehicle is carefully designed to not create sharp edges or broken sharp glass during an accident. That's why most of what you touch on a cars interior is plastic or small metal pieces. The airbag is a plastic (nylon) film to hold the air pressure. The highest trim level (Touring, XLT, Limited edition) versions of cars typically have laminated glass on all windows and plastic adhesive binder holding the layers together. This glsss is quieter and blocks road / wind noise better then tempered glass and it is safer. Whenever you see a crash test result for a vehicle, it is typically done with the highest trim level and the safest glass. If you are not buying the highest trim level of a given model, buy at your own risk.

Many materials that you find desirable - metal, paper and even glass - has polymers worked into them to make them last, make them safe or make them more usable. Paint coats most metals (even aluminum alloy rims are painted with clear paint because road salt would eat up raw aluminum). Paper cups can hold hot coffee because there is polymer reinforcing (well over 50% of the weight of the cup in some cases) and laminated glass windshields have a polymer adhesive layer to hold the layers of glass together. "Load-floors" used to cover spare tires in the trunk, rear window decks and interior door panels are some of the last automotive parts made of yucca board - a natural fiber that was impregnated with -- plastic resins or isocyanate foams. Even an iPad has a siloxane or fluoropolymer coating on the glass display to make the glass slipperier so your fingers can move faster across the display.

Unfortunately, many of the metal straws most people buy end up in purses and a storage compartment in a car growing mold and smelling badly. Few metal straws have not been used more than 5 times and more than 50% don't get used a second time. A whole industry of eliminating single-use plastics has been created to make a single use metal item. You may was yours and use it repeatedly but you are the exception.

So, I'm asking if people would pay more, it seems not on this site. That is not good or bad, its just a fact. Similar questions have been posed to other groups and the results are surprisingly different. One of my team members is a member of a forum about trail running. Apparently trail running forums attract a completely different crowd than people who frequent the "off topic" section of an electronics site.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
nobody says there has to be any plastics in a car. if plastics are bad, do not use plastics.
They did that once upon a time. Back in the Model T days, and even then they had plastics in them. Not the modern plastics but plastics none the less. I can't think that many people would be willing to go back to driving a Model T everyday.
 

panic mode

Joined Oct 10, 2011
2,715
does not need to be Ford-T. it is possible to build modern car with modern features without so much plastic. we did not even begin to think how to reduce dependency on plastic. bumpers, dashboards, seatbelt buckle handles, door panels, mirror housings and much more can be metal instead of plastic. automotive fuses can be glass or ceramic instead of plastic. fuse box can be PCB (fiberglass) and metal box substitute materials and not plastics.

the point is that car industry (or any industry for that matter) is not even trying to reduce use of plastics but they are pushing stupid ideas like pretending to do something good while continuing the same old practice and have someone feel better about it by paying more. "what if we continue but use larger percentage of recycled plastics" is just a coverup for continued use of plastics. it is putting lipstick on a pig.

i have seen plenty of presentations about going green but 99% of it is a hogwash. if they want to do something about it, they should do something about it. for real...
 
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Thread Starter

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
What percentage of those who "say" that they would pay more for recycled plastic actually would?
Likely all the people paying more for an eco-efficient Prius with the same or less features, same or less space, same or less power than a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle.
 

panic mode

Joined Oct 10, 2011
2,715
perhaps fitness enthusiast that does not use car or planes at all. only walks and rides bicycle or some animal. and bicycle seat and handle are draped in natural materials like leather. bike chain is lubricated by animal or plat based fat.
 

Thread Starter

MrSalts

Joined Apr 2, 2020
2,767
perhaps fitness enthusiast that does not use car or planes at all. only walks and rides bicycle or some animal. and bicycle seat and handle are draped in natural materials like leather. bike chain is lubricated by animal or plat based fat.
Interestingly, watched an automotive interiors assembly line make "leather" seats.
The hides comes in all bleached uniformly tan/beige. A scanner takes photos of them and a computer identifies all of the blemishes and measures all of the usable areas of each hide. Colors of the hides are measured to allow darker seats to be made with darker leathers and white/tan/red made with lighter color hides. Then lasers cut, then a primer coat of paint is added to make the leather take any printing more uniformly. Then some are screen printed with "leather grain" patterns or other patterns. Then the top coat of paint on the leather to prevent it from scratching/wearing for the next 12-years. It is a flexible polyurethane-based paint. I felt cheated. Why pay for leather when you are only touching paint.
 
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