5 ms·
It also seems basically impossible to fix too. Once we've reached the point of no return (probably there now), that's it, we're done.
by bamboozled 2y ago
It also seems basically impossible to fix too. Once we've reached the point of no return (probably there now), that's it, we're done.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoYeah, probably.
- Aromasin 2y agoArguably the plastics break down until they become basic short polymers that exist in everything though no? At some point they progress from micro-plastics to non-harmful substances. So having a break point where we stop producing plastics would mean that we stop adding then to the environment whilst allowing the eventual half-life of the material to take its course (granted that's probably 10s of thousands of years from now, but with clean up operations that could be accelerated).
- clark_dent 2y agoWell, no. Some common plastics like polycarbonate aren't biodegradable, and will basically never break down without application of significant heat/water/enzymatic activity/etc. For some of these, the half-life could be a great deal more even than 10s of millenia: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635#:~:text=Using%20a%20mean%20SSDR%20for,to%201200%20years%20(pipes) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06635#:~:te....
- Purplehermann 2y agoWell no, the environment is probably easier to deal with than our bodies, and we get replaced gen by gen.