Petroleum in real life: Soap and hand sanitizers

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Can solar power or windmills make petrochemical products?

I'll wait patiently for an enlightening response from the oil disliker crowd.

Petroleum in real life: Soap and hand sanitizers

Germ-fighting essentials are now more important than ever – and they’re oil products

As The World Turns… The Young and the Restless. These soap opera titles sound like the difficult times we’re all living through. Not to belittle the serious nature of the COVID-19 virus and its effect on work, life, social situations and more – but the point is: use soap.

We already know how soap and hand sanitizers are vital to helping us to stay healthy. But are you aware of the helping hand these products get from petroleum?

Your humble bar of soap has been based on petroleum derivatives for years. Petroleum is an important part of the soap recipe, which includes a combination of fats or oils, an alkali — basic ionic salt — and water. When these ingredients are combined in the proper proportions, they go through a chemical process called saponification, which results in soap.

The petroleum derivatives in soap are vital to enabling soap to pull dirt and germs from of our skin. This is absolutely critical during cold and flu season, and even more so during widespread viral infections such as we’re experiencing right now with COVID-19.

In recent weeks, public health officials and organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend washing hands with soap and water and advise that soap is one of our best weapons to deactivate the pathogen that causes COVID-19 (also known as the coronavirus). But if soap and water are not available, using a hand sanitizer with at least 60 per cent alcohol can be effective.  ...

Did you know?

You can make your own hand sanitizer using store-bought petroleum-based isopropyl alcohol. Click here to find out how. 

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[Enthalpic + 1,496]

Soap is just fat and a base.  Animal fat and ashes predate petrochemicals.

Hand sanitizer is pretty much just alcohol which can be made from grains, rice, corn... no petrochemicals required at all.

Bad examples Tom...

Natural rubber gloves, wood-fibre based masks.... also not  petrochemicals

 

 

Nitrile gloves, tubing, sure

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

Chlorine bleach and sodium hydroxide (for soap) is easily made from salt water and electricity.

 

[JoMack + 547]

Plastics are in the high end of the crude oil spectrum or that percentage table they always give us. Oxygen masks, tubes, containers for water, cosmetics, asphalt, tires, you know, and all that yucky stuff we need to get rid of - ventilator and testing casings, etc. Oh, almost forgot,  when you're out grocery shopping now, they recommend plastic bags instead of your bring in take out bags that carry the "virus"!!  , oh my, the enviros are losing their minds.  Hope so.