What are plastic straws made of?
Plastic straws take polypropylene and pigment directly. Trace them back and you pass 11 made things on the way to 9 raw materials.
How plastic straws are made See it on the map
What goes straight in
From the ground: 9 raw materials
- Iron ore through pigment
- Sulfur through pigment
- Crude oil through polypropylene, propylene
- Titanium ore through pigment, titanium dioxide
- Air through pigment, carbon black
- Water through pigment, carbon black
- Rock salt through pigment, titanium dioxide, chlorine
- Coal through pigment, titanium dioxide, coke
- Natural gas through polypropylene, propylene, naphtha, hydrogen
Made along the way: 9 things
Metals 1
Chemicals and fuels 8
What it is packed in
On the line, but left out of everything above, because it holds the finished thing rather than goes into it.