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

I can explain this like you’re actually five.

You have five pieces of candy, and every minute you eat one. So how long will it take to eat all of them? That’s right, 5 minutes total.

We can do the same for this math problem, we measure how long it took to eat one candy to estimate how long it takes to eat the others without even having to eat them.