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The question is, under what degradation conditions (time, bacteria, etc), and what other threat vector does the material bring to animal life.
by wuschel 9y ago
The question is, under what degradation conditions (time, bacteria, etc), and what other threat vector does the material bring to animal life.
- collyw 9y agoTrue, but biodegradable is still better than not.
- jwdunne 9y agoWell no. Plastic biogrades at a snail's pace. Timescales differ on type of plastic. Plastic bags apparently take 20 years to biodegrade, for instance. PVC pipes are used in plumbing because biodegradation is extremely slow - not that it doesn't ever happen.
- collyw 9y agoI wasn't aware that plastic bags / pipes biodegraded at all, hence my position.
- jdmichal 9y agoI think plastics are one of those things where, dumped into a random place, they probably won't be biodegraded. However, for any given plastic, there is probably some organism in existence which will eat it under some or all conditions. So the usage of "biodegradable" maybe depends on which viewpoint you are interested in. For example, here's the wiki on polyethylene, which seems like the typical plastic for "plastic bags" from a store: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene#Biodegrading_plastics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene#Biodegrading_plas...