Zersetzung
Decomposition of plastic waste in the sea
Plastics: Durability with consequences
Plastics are particularly durable and it is hard to imagine life today without them. In the last 50 years their production has increased more than twentyfold worldwide and will double again in the next 20 years. Three quarters of the garbage in the sea consists of plastics. There it takes about 450 years until a plastic bottle is dismantled. Fishing lines are even more durable: they will only decay in 600 years.
Plastics are particularly durable and it is hard to imagine life today without them. In the last 50 years their production has increased more than twentyfold worldwide and will double again in the next 20 years. Three quarters of the garbage in the sea consists of plastics. There it takes about 450 years until a plastic bottle is dismantled. Fishing lines are even more durable: they will only decay in 600 years.
The
Most plastics consist of very long, water-repellent molecules, which do not occur in this form in nature. This makes them particularly resistant to natural degradation.Due to the UV radiation, wave movements and friction microplastic particles are continuously smaller, but not completely degradedt.One speaks then of secondary microplastic.