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Have you ever worked on an older house or car? Plastic rots, one way or another, and those moisture barriers will have become brittle and useless over time. I d
by dclowd9901 5y ago
Have you ever worked on an older house or car? Plastic rots, one way or another, and those moisture barriers will have become brittle and useless over time. I don't know what causes this to happen, especially when we keep being told plastic will outlast civilization itself, but my experience is that plastic in usage has a very definitive shelf life.
You replace it as you do with anything else that exists. Everything requires maintenance.
- ericbarrett 5y agoYes, plastic degrades mainly through oxidation, water, and UV exposure. The danger is that these kinds of things just embrittle the plastic, causing it to crack, flake and powder into smaller pieces ("chain scission"), which we believe are still endocrinologically significant. True biodegradation would mean the plastic is reduced to base chemicals like CO2.