If plastic was made in 1907 how do they know it may take up to 1000 years to decompose?

Question

If plastic was made in 1907 how do they know it may take up to 1000 years to decompose?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Chemical Engineer here. General rule of thumb is that for every 10 deg C increase in temperature it doubles the reaction rate. Raise temperature and everything starts moving around faster and we can extrapolate times that are longer than our observable lifetimes. Subject plastic to high temperatures = higher degradation rates. Compute that back to normal temps for actual decomposition time