In addition to oil companies, the growing global economy, and wars, one culprit in the increase in oil price is consumer consumption of plastic products.
Americans used 31.2 billion liters of bottled water in 2006, requiring over 900,000 tons of plastic. The manufacturing process to make the bottles requires a combination of natural gas and petroleum. The U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil. Americans are not alone in this; other large consumers of bottled water include Mexico, China, Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, Indonesia, Spain and India.
Plastic bags have also become commonplace all over the world for their ease of production and cheapness compared to paper bags. Plastic bags take oil to produce, just like plastic bottles. Currently, the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags in a year. Worldwide consumption is between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year. That’s 12 million barrels of oil a year for the U.S. and 60 million - 120 million worldwide.
The 29.6 million barrels of oil a year the U.S. uses for plastic bags and plastic water bottles could fuel 2-3 million cars over the same period.