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> Imagine all the plastic items in the World suddenly as susceptible to rot as wood. It would fundamentally change almost every aspect our existence, in a very
by mseebach 8y ago
> Imagine all the plastic items in the World suddenly as susceptible to rot as wood. It would fundamentally change almost every aspect our existence, in a very short amount of time.
Hardly. Some usages of plastic would need to be altered, but most would be fine. The conditions in which wood will rot are very specific (the forest floor, basically) and reasonably easy to avoid, surely something similar will be true for rotting plastic. Pre plastics, practically anything, including all kinds of liquids, was stored in wooden barrels.
- Sharlin 8y agoTo be fair, wooden things—were they barrels, ships, or houses—absolutely require protection and maintenance to prevent them from rotting. We became pretty good at that because wood was a crucial raw material for millennia. We haven’t thought about how to protect plastics because we’ve accustomed to plastics not needing protection.
- Moru 8y agoPlastics need protection from a lot of things, cold, heat, sun not to mention physical wear. Some older, cheaper plastics just crubles to dust when you touch them.
- therealdrag0 8y agoIs crumbled plastic part of the micro-plastics we hear about polluting the ocean?
- Kroniker 8y agoYes! In fact most plastic is relative susceptible to UV radiation, which facilitates that "crumbliness" in the ocean.
- kazinator 8y agoThe conditions under which wood rots: untreated + outdoors.
- otempomores 8y agoPlastic bags form nice little water keeping biomes.