Petroleum Products
We live in a world made from refined oil. Every day we pump vast quantities of crude oil, also known as petroleum (literally, “rock oil”), from under the earth in order to refine it into hundreds of different products. The food we consume is grown with fertilizers created from refined petroleum. Our vehicles run off of refined oil products (gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel), on them (tires), and over them (asphalt in highways and streets). They appear in the clothes we wear. When you pick up your toothbrush you are holding a petroleum product because most of the plastic in the world comes from crude oil that has been refined. As different as fertilizer, rocket fuel, panty hose, roofing shingles, and the plastic in your computer seem from each other they all have one common denominator: they come from refined crude oil.