Is that so bad? I mean, it was oil in the ground and now it is plastic in the ground. It seems like a kind of carbon sequestration, where 10,000 years is a feature, no?
Honestly curious.
Honestly curious.
As plastics it is "broken down" into microplastics, and gets into things and areas it was never intended to be. It is then consumed and builds up in the systems of animals, and even eventually by us.
Even your local landfill, is part of a management system, but will it really last 3,000 years?
We can't just keep adding and adding to it, we can't cover the planet in landfills of plastic, we aren't putting the "oils" back to where they came from.
In Canada, I remember being taught "give a hoot, don't pollute", and to us, as kids, that meant "don't create trash" as much as "clean up your trash".
> We can't just keep adding and adding to it, we can't cover the planet in landfills of plastic, we aren't putting the "oils" back to where they came from.
Why does it matter if it's the same spot?
More importantly there's only so much oil and putting it all in landfills would not cover the planet.
Your crushed 4L milk jug in a landfill isn't much of a source of microplastics, nor is it much of a threat to the water table (I mean, we use that same plastic for food).
In many places we knew oil was there because it was leaking out.
Some of the deposits were exposed to the surface. We have ancient records of people making use of it to make adhesive or caulk boats. Those have just tended to have gotten used up by now.