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Comment by lostlogin | Hacker News Reader

I’m reading ‘The World Without Us’ by Alan’s Weisman. Last thread like this had someone recommend it (thanks!).

Every bit of plastic humans have made still exits, bar a small amount we have burnt.

That’s concerning.

All petroleum products come from the fossilized remains of the first trees to evolve lignin, which was tough and durable enough to allow trees to grow taller, but also too tough and durable for any other living things to decompose it. At the time, fallen trees would not rot, and the resulting buildup of wood all over the place caused all sorts of ecological problems. Many of those trees ended up buried deep underground before microbes could evolve the means to eat them, where they became fossilized and turned into coal and petroleum, which we eventually turned into plastic.

Now, that plastic is too tough and durable for any modern microbes to decompose it, and it's starting to build up too. It stands to reason that microbes will eventually evolve the means to digest it and make use of this abundant, under-used energy source. In fact, some already have [1], but it's still early days.

I'm not pro-pollution, but this is far from the first ecological disaster that the global ecosystem can probably adapt to.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_degradation_by_marine_...

You are boldly and confidently at odds with the usual explanations of the formation of oil:

* https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Oil_formation

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

these other sources all assert that

   The origin of fossil fuels is the anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms, particularly planktons and algae.

I think they are conflating Carboniferous Period / white rot slowing _coal_ formation with Oil formation.

Ah, yep. Did conflate coal with oil. I guess my nice analogy doesn't quite hold, but the point stands that plastic originally came from organic matter and is technically biodegradable.

> It stands to reason that microbes will eventually evolve the means to digest it and make use of this abundant, under-used energy source. In fact, some already have [1], but it's still early days.

That’s a hell of a way to kick the can down the road.

I don’t have sea views, but if I wait, sea views are coming.

The ecosystem will be fine, the question is whether we are going to be part of it.

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