When oil reserves deplete, what will we use to make e.g mobile phones, laptops, food packaging etc.?

Question

Its all made of oil right? so when oil reserves run out in the near future, how will we advance in technology, synthetic oil is not enough, because that is still an oil based product.

Answer 1

They are now made of oil because oil has been cheap and plastics are easy to mold, etc.

Before plastics became cheap, other materials were used. Food came in glass jars and milk bottles, in waxed paper cartons, etc. Some of the more expensive laptops already come in metal cases. Early TV sets were in wooden cabinets, but wood became more expensive, while plastics became cheap so now they generally come in plastic. And phones are so small that the cost of the plastic in them is negligible.

But:

- plastics can be made of other raw materials (other materials are just more expensive)

- packages can be made of other materials  - both the materials they used to be made of or new materials yet to be used because they've been more expensive.

Packaging materials are going to be the least of problems w.r.t. oil reserves running low:

- only about 6% of the oil is used to make plastics.

- many plastics are used for products other than the sort of packaging you seem to be concerned about.