Andrew Zonenberg on Nostr: I've often wondered if we're living through a "new Carboniferous period" because ...

I've often wondered if we're living through a "new Carboniferous period" because critters that can digest plastics haven't evolved yet.

I expect over e6-e9 year time scales, polymers will gradually break down into shorter and shorter chains and perhaps high concentrations of them, like landfills, will become oil-field-like natural resource reservoirs for whatever species inhabits our planet at that time.

But hopefully on a much shorter time scale recycling will evolve to the point that mining old landfills will become profitable, allowing us to recover some of these old resources for reuse.