Silicon, silicone, and plastic

Silicon is an element.  Silicone is a polymer.  The silent "e" makes all the difference.

Silicon (without the e) is a relatively inert element that's been used in making glass for millennia, not to mention being useful in mortar and other cool construction materials.

Sometimes, when people are trying to go green, they'll try to switch from things like plastic sandwich bags to reusable silicone sandwich bags.  I see more and more of these out there.   You can buy silicone ice cube trays, cake molds, and more.  Silicone (unlike plastic) can go in the oven, and it's non-stick, and it's trendy.  So it's reasonable to wonder:  is silicone (with an e) sustainable?  I honestly didn't know until I started digging into this for my plastic-free July blogfest.   Here's what I dug up in my searching. 

Is silicone an ecologically sustainable material?  Well . . . , as "Livegreen" says, "not really, but better than plastic in some ways . . . "

While the base silicon comes from quartz, a plentiful resource, the hydrocarbons used to make silicone usually come from petroleum or natural gas. The methods for obtaining and processing these materials have well-established environmental criticisms. Silicone is arguably more environmentally friendly than plastic in kitchen applications, as plastic is not as hardy or long lasting as silicone is — and silicone is more inert than plastic, which means it has a lower chance of leaching chemicals into food when used for food storage. Using silicone in kitchenware can be a good option as long as you maintain it to ensure it has a long lifespan, and do your best to recycle it once you can no longer use it.

[However . . . ] While there is nothing about silicone chemically that would prevent it from being recycled, curbside recycling programs rarely accept it, and it can be difficult to find a silicone recycler to accept post-consumer products. This is because many consumers confuse polyurethane with silicone.

The website notes that Terracycle will recycle the material, but, as I noted last week, "The service can be expensive for an individual, but manageable if you organize a collection with a group of friends."

A company that sells silicone bakeware and kitchenware weighs in with this unusual argument for why silicone is preferable to plastic -- it doesn't decompose easily!  As they say:

Because silicone is so durable, it doesn’t easily biodegrade or decompose. While normal plastics break down into dangerous microplastic pieces that can be ingested by wildlife and ocean life, silicone doesn’t break down much at all (it’s that good!). While this may sound worse, plastic activists say it’s actually better for the environment, as large silicone pieces are less likely to get caught in fish bellies, which can cause a multitude of health problems in marine life as well as in humans that consume them down the line. [from a company that sells stuff]

 So.  It seems like if you can get non-polymer-based versions of your objects (a metal or glass baking pan, a glass storage container, for example), that's the eco-friendly champion.   But if you are eyeing, say, a rubber spatula and a silicone one, the silicone version makes more sense.  (Glass spatulas are not so practical, really.)

And . . . that's everything I know about silicone.