From Cheap Substitutes to High Performance Materials

Abstract

Authors Dickerson and Geis must be a little inexperienced in the matters of the world to make such a statement in their otherwise very nice book. Polyethylene is annually produced world-wide in over 15 million tons. A laboratory beaker weighs about 50 g and since such beakers can practically be used only for water solutions, their main consumers are biochemists and molecular biologists. The number of this species can be estimated as about 100000. Since polyethylene is allegedly good only for laboratory beakers, each bio person has to use 3000000 beakers per year. Scientists are supposed to work 6-day weeks with 10-hour days, each scientist will thus have to consume 17 beakers per minute, which requires some artistic talent.

Polyethylene is good for inert laboratory beakers and very little else.

R. E. Dickerson and I. Geis, The Structure and Action of Proteins, Harper and Row, New York 1969, page 4