I remember being confused about the longevity of plastic when I would see it get brittle in the sun and then break and crumble. Wait, I thought this stuff lasted forever? --But what I wasn't realizing was that even if it was breaking down into physically smaller bits, it was still **plastic**--and that as such, when it was filling up the guts of creatures (and moving up the food chain), this was a big not-good.
So I'm thinking that even if bio-based substitutes have the same tough imperviousness of plastic--which they need to have to be good substitutes--then as they break down in the sun the way plastic does, into smaller bits, then at least in theory they would be digestible? That is, if microbes or small fish fill their bellies with cassava (or potato, or whatever), then that's not going to be as killing/poisonous for them as a belly full of polyethylene. ... But I suppose that's not going to be 100 percent the case. And a lot depends on the materials used to process the cassava (or potato) etc. to give it the desired properties...
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2023-04-22 02:16 pm (UTC)So I'm thinking that even if bio-based substitutes have the same tough imperviousness of plastic--which they need to have to be good substitutes--then as they break down in the sun the way plastic does, into smaller bits, then at least in theory they would be digestible? That is, if microbes or small fish fill their bellies with cassava (or potato, or whatever), then that's not going to be as killing/poisonous for them as a belly full of polyethylene. ... But I suppose that's not going to be 100 percent the case. And a lot depends on the materials used to process the cassava (or potato) etc. to give it the desired properties...