If plastic was made in 1907 how do they know it may take up to 1000 years to decompose?
In: Chemistry
Maybe by then it will turn back to oil! So we really dont have an oil shortage! We just have to wait 1000 years lol.
The same way you can figure out how long it will take to fill a 5 gallon bucket by figuring out how long it takes to fill a 1 gallon bucket. The rate doesn’t change, just the time.
If it takes 1 minute to fill 1 gallon, then it’s going to take 5 minutes to fill 5 gallons.
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
The real tragedy here is the fact that we have destroyed our oceans with plastic in just over 100 years..
I think the worlds plastic is more likely to end up on that trash floating island than it is to actually decompose.
They don’t. It’s bullshit. A small piece of plastic exposed to harsh sunlight might decompose in a few months. A large block at the bottom of a lake might last a million years. Any scientific statement that includes the phrase “may take up to” isn’t scientific at all.
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