If plastic was made in 1907 how do they know it may take up to 1000 years to decompose?
In: Chemistry
PhD in plastics engineering here. There’s a technique known as time-temperature superposition, which allows us to predict how long it will take to degrade plastics by subjecting the plastics to high temperatures (keeping most details out of it) and seeing how long it takes to degrade at this high temperature. Then we use this information to compute how long it will take the plastic to decompose at ambient (room) temperatures. This method gives a very precise number much more accurate that a qualitative 1000s of years. The most stable plastics would probably survive for 100s of years, not 1000s.
Like pouring a cup of water in the sink. You don’t have to pour the entire cup to estimate when it’s going to run out.
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
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.
I think the worlds plastic is more likely to end up on that trash floating island than it is to actually decompose.
The real tragedy here is the fact that we have destroyed our oceans with plastic in just over 100 years..
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