It is a common belief in the water and construction industries that the price of oil dictates the price of plastic commodities and products, and therefore impacts on project costs. But the idea that the price of plastic should correlate directly with the price of oil is a wide misconception and one that needs to be debunked.rnIn many cases, it is the price of the feedstock, ethylene (in the case of polyethylene) that has the bigger impact on the price of plastic.rnPlastic is derived from recuperated - or 'cracked' - naptha, a simple refining residue that once was just flared off. Ethylene is the building block of all types of polyethylene, the most common type of plastic, and is a by-product of oil so it is essentially putting a waste product to good use, rather than polluting the atmosphere.
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