I’m not talking about plastic with specific issues (i.e. plastics bags look like jellyfish to sea turtles so sea turtles eat them and die).
But the sand on the beach is still going to be sand on the beach in 10,000 years, so what specific issues are going to happen from X amount of sand grains being plastic?
Edit: Based on the first few replies: I’m talking about plastics that are said to still be there, unchanged, millions of years later. Like they’d show up on the geological record. “Forever plastics”
IF they don’t decay what’s the issue? Or is them not decaying and “forever plastics” a misconception?
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The issue your having is that ***everything*** breaks down over a long enough time period. The sand on the beach will still be sand in 10,000 years but that sand came from rocks and mountain faces. Plastic has this same problem but its happens much more frequently due to it being a weaker material. It will break down into particles that many times smaller than sand very quickly and proceed to leach into the environment.
As it leaches into the environment, it starts to get absorbed into anything that happens to be near it. Fish might get it stuck in their gills, worms will consume it from the dirt, birds swallow it mistaking it for food, etc. These plastics will enter them and subsequently the food system where they slowly build up.
https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/plastic-problem/plastic-affect-animals/plastic-food-chain/
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