Today's Living Without Oil-based Products (3/5/2026)
I tried to live for 24 hours without using oil-based products. It was ridiculously impossible
Petrochemicals are the cheap, ubiquitous feedstocks for so much we consume: the raw materials for our digital devices, cosmetics and detergents, plastic packaging, our medical supplies and fertilisers.
But Chen tells me even my towels are flawed. “In order to efficiently grow cotton, you need a lot of fertiliser,” he says. “Without fertiliser, without pesticide, they won’t grow so well. So in order to have such a large bio-based raw material, we also need assistance from petrochemical products.”
To recover, I order an oat latte and feel comforted that my mug reads: “Piss off, I’m having a bad day”. The coffee machine was probably plastic-laden and the beans transported on an oil-guzzling ship, but can I personally do anything in response? Grow my own beans and grind them with a mortar and pestle? Buy and milk my own cow? But where would I keep it? And what about the emissions?
The issue, Chen says, is that single-use plastic is “so cheap”.
“That’s why people started to overuse or abuse it, so we no longer reuse and recycle.
“Bio-based material can be two or three times more expensive. And then if you look very carefully, they are also using petrochemical products in their making.
“In order for material to stand the moisture, the oxygen environment, so you can preserve the food for long enough, they have to mix with some of the petrochemical product.”
I am only using my iPhone to take photos of the experiment, given it is not only coated in plastic but also contains resins, polyethylene and synthetic rubbers.
I have hundreds of books but didn’t realise most paperbacks made after 1900 use adhesives and plastic laminate, unlike the good old days of animal-based glue and wheat starch paste.