It took a long time for fungi to evolve to consume wood (bacteria too). It took 60 million years for this evolution to take place. Sounds like plastic might be

It took a long time for fungi to evolve to consume wood (bacteria too). It took 60 million years for this evolution to take place. Sounds like plastic might be on a faster track according to this article. Basically wood cells are hard to penetrate, don't provide a food source if they've been air dried, and even in cases where fresh cut wood isn't dried quickly, organisms don't cause enough damage to affect wood's strength. Pretty fascinating stuff. > Deterioration Without Decomposition. When fresh-cut lumber or veneer is properly air-seasoned, the stored food materials in the sapwood are soon depleted by the respiratory processes of the wood parenchyma cells themselves. If drying is delayed, however, the fresh-cut wood can be invaded by so-called sap-stain fungi and algae, or by bacteria and molds that develop over the surface or penetrate deep into the sapwood by growing through the ray cells from one wood storage cell to another. These organisms use the contents of the wood storage cells as food and thus do not affect the strength of wood seriously; they primarily discolor the wood or alter its permeability. When fresh-cut wood is kiln-dried immediately, the living cells of the sapwood are killed by the heat and the reserve foods are retained in the wood storage cells. If kiln-dried wood becomes wet again, these stored foods can again become substrates for growth of discoloring fungi and bacteria. Source: https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1984/kirk84a.pdf https://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1984/kirk84a.pdf