Plastic waste can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose, and even then, it never fully disappears; it just gets smaller and smaller.
While some plastics are reusable or recyclable, packaging and thicker plastic items are not. Plastic can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose, depending on the material's structure and environmental factors such as sunlight exposure.
Why? Both processes are dependent on bacteria that consume and breakdown waste into simple matter. But PET is made with chemicals that bacteria cannot consume. That is not to say that plastics can't breakdown, they do, but it takes a long time; plastic bottles take up to 450 years to decompose in landfill.
Plastics can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose, depending on the material and structure. Additionally, how fast a plastic breaks down depends on sunlight exposure. Like our skin, plastics absorb ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, which breaks down the molecules.
The enzymes in the microorganisms that break down biodegradeable materials don't recognize the bonds that hold polymers together. Eventually, the polymers in plastic waste may break down, perhaps after hundreds of thousands of years. But when it takes such a long time, the damage is already done to the environment.
Plastic waste can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose, and even then, it never fully disappears; it just gets smaller and smaller.
Polyethylene Resin Code #2 or #4
Code #2 is a thicker type of plastic whereas #4 is a thinner material. Both can last anywhere from 500 years to 1,000 years in a landfill before finally degrading. It's plastic bags that do some of the worst damage to local sea life.
Because plastic lasts for so long, every single piece of plastic ever made still exists, and will continue existing for at least 500 years. To put that in context, if Leonardo da Vinci had drunk water from a plastic bottle when he was painting the Mona Lisa, that bottle would not have fully decomposed yet.
Finally, the wide range of completely synthetic materials that we would recognise as modern plastics started to be developed around 100 years ago: One of the earliest examples was invented by Alexander Parkes in 1855, who named his invention Parkesine. We know it today as celluloid.
Glass: up to 4,000 years
A frightening 4,000 years is how long it takes a glass bottle to decompose in the environment.
It takes more than one millennium for a plastic bag to decompose, slowly breaking down into smaller and smaller microplastics that are swept away by air and water into the highest peaks and the deepest trenches of our planet. We breathe up to 7,000 microplastics each day. We eat and drink them.
Plastic generally takes between 500-1000 years to degrade. Even then, it becomes microplastics, without fully degrading. Currently, there are about 50-75 trillion pieces of plastic and microplastics in the ocean.
Glass – left to break down, glass can take 1 million years. However, when dealt with responsibly, glass can be recycled endlessly with no loss in quality. Plastic – while not endlessly recyclable, many plastics can be re-processed several times into new products before they start to break down.
It takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. Unfortunately, the bags don't break down completely but instead photo-degrade, becoming microplastics that absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.
The problem: Ordinary plastic bags are made from oil, which few microbes can digest. So these plastics don't decay easily. Biodegradable plastics are sometimes made from materials that microbes do readily digest. Others may be held together with chemical bonds that break apart when exposed to water or sunlight.
The typical trash bag takes 10-20 years to decompose, while other plastic trash bags can take 500 to 1000 years to break down. This means that there are plastic bags still in existence since 1965 when the first plastic bag was created.
1862. At the Great International Exhibition in London, the world saw the first example of man-made plastic in the form of medallions, combs and knife handles made of Parkesine. The material, invented by Alexander Parkes, was originally conceived as a substitute for ivory.
Plastic. Although earlier plastics had relied on organic material, the first fully synthetic plastic was invented in 1907 when Leo Hendrik Baekeland accidentally created Bakelite. His initial quest was to invent a ready replacement for shellac, an expensive product derived from lac beetles.
Before the invention of plastic, the only substances that could be molded were clays (pottery) and glass. Hardened clay and glass were used for storage, but they were heavy and brittle. Some natural substances, like tree gums and rubber, were sticky and moldable.
However, even after we begin working with other types of waste, we won't run out of plastic in my lifetime. We just won't. There is more than 9 billion tons of plastic waste in the world. 91 percent of that is not recycled.
Natural fiber cloth. Natural cloth can replace plastic bags. Sustainable clothing made from organic cotton, wool, hemp, or bamboo won't shed plastic fibers when washed. Felted or recycled wool is a versatile, safe, and compostable material for children's toys, household containers, and more.
1. St Kitts and Nevis. The small two-island nation of St Kitts and Nevis is a popular Caribbean destination that is addressing the problem of single-use plastic to preserve its natural beauty and tourist appeal.
Plastic does not decompose. This means that all plastic that has ever been produced and has ended up in the environment is still present there in one form or another. Plastic production is booming since the 1950s.
Most plastics in use today are made of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET for short, and are nearly indestructible. It is nearly impossible to decompose PET plastics because most bacteria cannot break them down. UV light from the sun can break plastic down, but it takes a long time.