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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
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There is a huge diversity of plastics being produced today and each one will require a unique evolutionary adaptation to be biodegraded. We’re also continuously developing new plastics and new combinations of plastics such as core-shell polymers. You also had much more wood available than you have plastic scattered across the earth, meaning much more energy available for any microorganisms that evolved to degrade wood and thus a greater evolutionary advantage. I don’t think microbes are going to save us from the plastic scourge anytime soon.
Agree with all points except the availability of plastic.
There might have been more wood, but the mass of plastic is enormous. I remember that it's more than the mass of all animals. The value should be from this study, but it's closed access, so I can't check.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-3010-5
Wouldn't it also be pertinent that we store a lot of waste plastic with our other plastics? I mean, our landfills are pitri dishes for a massive variety of microbes to have a go at consuming plastic. Compared to a much less diverse population of those that would have been around at the time to learn to consume wood.