Plastic Can Actually Decompose
27 August 2009
No Good News, Though During the last National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) held earlier this month, researchers unveiled a recent finding in plastic chemistry.
Instead of being virtually indestructible, plastic materials abandoned in the marine environment decompose and release toxic substances potentially dangerous to marine life.

So far the billions of tons of plastic material floating in the oceans have been considered a threat because marine animals could mistake them for food or get entangled in them.
A research lead by scientist Katsuhiko Saido just revealed that plastic actually decomposes rapidly thanks to the action of the sun and of the rain, and thus releases compounds such as bisphenol A (BPA) and polystyrene oligomers.
These components are likely to enter the food web, potentially disrupting the functioning of hormones in animals and seriously affecting reproductive systems.

This research highlights therefore another threat which human activities pose to the marine environment, a system already weakened by over-fishing, acidification and global warming."
 

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