[Pfish]

Newbie here.

Does anybody know where to find a list of products that are a made directly or indirectly from oil? I.E. it takes X amount of barrels of oil to produce Z. As a consumer it would be interesting to see how it affects the wallet as the price of oil climbs.

Pfish

[spot5050]

Newbie here.

Does anybody know where to find a list of products that are a made directly or indirectly from oil?

I can't think of any products that don't have any oil in them either directly or indirectly. Can you?

I've just had a quick look round my house and I didn't find anything.

I.E. it takes X amount of barrels of oil to produce Z. As a consumer it would be interesting to see how it affects the wallet as the price of oil climbs.

An 'oil component' index of various products or even services or businesses would be very interesting. I have no idea how one would go about calculating such a thing tho.

[eastbay]

It might be easier to make a list of products and goods that are NOT made of oil.

The only ones I could find in my house are some winter mandarin oranges a neighbor gave us a few days ago.

100% cotton clothes are harvested/manufactured/shipped and delivered by fuel burning equipment. They shouldn't count.

I drove to get the mandarins...

EastBay

[Eteonian]

This has been done precisely but 'anecdotely' only for some products. It's called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) mostly by European environmental agencies (I know of one example for paint manufacture). It is hugely expensive as CO2, water use, energy use, packaging disposal etc all needs to be researched and accounted for.

In a well functioning society interested in full environmental accounting of it's activities this should be effortlesslly accounted for by passing all this informtion without much cost fom the raw material suppliers as part of the financial transaction to the manufacturer to the distribution chanel to the consumers. So you would know with every box of cereal how much oil you are bying. It should have an label on it just like the ingredients.

EG. Contains 500 gms of Weat, 2.5 Sultanas, 1 Kg fo Sugar and 5 gallons of petrochemicals burned in the process of making it and getting it to you. But then you might have lost your appetite for it. And that's excactly why no one wants to implement this.

[frankthetank]

ITs hard to find products that didn't consume oil somewhere along their route of ending up in your house.

[spot5050]

This has been done precisely but 'anecdotely' only for some products. It's called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) mostly by European environmental agencies (I know of one example for paint manufacture). It is hugely expensive as CO2, water use, energy use, packaging disposal etc all needs to be researched and accounted for.

Got any links for that Etonian?

It should have an label on it just like the ingredients.

EG. Contains 500 gms of Weat, 2.5 Sultanas, 1 Kg fo Sugar and 5 gallons of petrochemicals burned in the process of making it and getting it to you.

Stunning idea.

[leal]

ITs hard to find products that didn't consume oil somewhere along their route of ending up in your house.

What about things that you grow at home? Maybe an apple from a tree in your backyard?

[leal]

This has been done precisely but 'anecdotely' only for some products. It's called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) mostly by European environmental agencies (I know of one example for paint manufacture). It is hugely expensive as CO2, water use, energy use, packaging disposal etc all needs to be researched and accounted for.

Got any links for that Etonian?

Here is one example

[Eteonian]

The France based company ECOBILAN did the study on paint in the early nineties (have only got a thick paper copy). They still work: www.ecobalance.com on similar projects. You could ask them for any public copies or newer work on other products which shows oil/energy content.

I discussed the idea of passing material and energy content information transparently throught he business process by tagging the data onto the proposed electronic XML transaction processing formats - at least as a framework that would need to filled as we go - at a local green building conference with a Canadian delegate (I would have to dig for the name and institute contact) who did some trial LCA work on public buildings there - EG how much to renovate/build in terms of oil/energy, materials, etc. He was going to use his gvnmt contacts to pass the proposal on.

Never had time to follow up.

He was going to