How did we make plastic that isn’t biodegradable and is so bad for the planet, out of materials only found on Earth?

Question

I just wondered how we made these sorts of things when everything on Earth works together and naturally decomposes.

In: 6571

Answer 1

To biodegrade, you need a bacteria to eat it, or am animal but that’s even less likely.

It’s hard to eat it because you have to break the molecule to “burn it” in your body. Plastic is made by forcing oil based molecules to join together. Oil based molecules are already vere very long chains, and plastic is a super long chain. No living creature evolved to break such a complex food because normally food is made of short molecules.

Eventually, some bacteria will try it and succeed, bacteria evolve really fast so if they are given a new food, they probably give it a try sooner or later.