How to Get the Oil Out of Your Life

Oil is everywhere.

The ubiquity of petroleum as a manufacturing raw material is mind-boggling. There is petroleum in your kitchen, living room, bedroom, home office, den and car (aside from the fuel and oil tanks).

Household items that have petroleum derivatives that you might not expect include health and beauty products (lip balm, moisturizer, diaper cream, eye drops, styling gel, hair color, nail polish and all kinds of make-up), clothes, house paint, CDs, bug repellents, serving and storage bowls, detergent, luggage, golf bags, bicycle and car tires, linoleum floors and pantyhose.

If an item is plastic or plastic-like, rubbery or stretchy, chances are good it's petroleum-based. Natural gas has replaced oil in some of these items, but since gas prices rise and fall with oil prices and gas is often found where oil is, the difference is negligible.

Fariborz Ghadar, director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Pennsylvania State University, estimates that 10% to 15% of the petroleum drilled around the world goes to uses other than fuel for transport and heating. In the U.S., an additional 20% of the petroleum we use goes to agriculture in the form of pesticides and other chemicals and fuel for farm equipment, he says.

Why is this significant? For me, it's sobering to realize how reliant we are on foreign fossil fuels -- not just for driving, but also for products as varied as grapes, toys, diapers, exercise clothes and wound-dressings.

It's also sobering to see a broader picture of why prices are rising in every aisle of the supermarket and of the pressure oil prices have on businesses.

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