"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Derek Geldard wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:11:22 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Derek Geldard wrote:
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:07:29 +0000, Frank Erskine
wrote:

On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:21:28 -0700 (PDT), Owain
had this to say:

And without cattle there'd be no leather so that would mean oil based
plastic substitutes for footwear, clothing and furniture.

Footwear - wooden clogs.
Clothing - cotton, wool or linen.
Furniture - wood and possibly cotton and/or wool.

Of course, not all 'plastic' stuff is oil-based - think bakelite.
Phenol Formaldehyde innit ?

Whereja get the phenol ?

Trees?

Its a naturally occuring substance in many plants. And a constituent of
creosote IIRC.

Whereja get the formaldehyde ?

Methanol. Otherwise known as 'wood alcohol' Guess where it comes from.


What useter be the rain forest ?

Without actually knowing my intuition tells me there will be less such
desirable content in fast growing softwoods.


More actually.

softwoods are loaded with resins that make great chemical feedstocks.

Up till about mid 1800's that and animal products was all there was in
terms of organic chemistry raw materials.

Really there aren't that many crucial materials that cant be replaced with
something else, in most products. Not in bulk, anyway. I means we use
steel , bricks and concrete because its cheap and abundant. Not because
its best.




So what is then if they're not ? "Best" in what sense ?

Arfa






Derek