How long does it take plastic to degrade?
Plastic does not degrade easily, often not at all. Throwing a piece of plastic into the garbage probably means it will be around long after you and your grandkids are long gone. Of course companies are working on biodegradable plastics, but even these plastics must be put into a compose heap of sorts to biodegrade. If your plastic packaging or sandwich bag is thrown into the garbage, it’s probably headed for a landfill and that’s the worst place a piece of plastic can end up.
Plastic will only degrade in intense sunlight or adverse temperatures. These conditions are not met in a landfill, they’re not really met anywhere. Have you ever seen a plastic sign in an old store? Sometimes a sign will sit in a window for fifty years and lose its color, imagine how long it would take to totally degrade!
So don’t buy CD’s and add to the looming landfill problem, download your tunes and be ecofriendly.
