Concerning degradation rates of marine litter that are shared by NGO or mainstream media, does anyone know what is the approach to calculate the lifetime of plastics in the sea ? How do we know that a plastic bag lasts 10 or 20 years ? or 50 years for a styrofoam cup ?
Here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/decomposition-rates-marine-debris
And here: https://safety4sea.com/marine-debris-long-gone/
I can find specific methods in polymer degradation studies, but I can't find sources for these widespread data.
When you visit this page at Research Gate, you will see a number of articles concerning what you are looking for:
Article Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment
Also Degradation of Various Plastics in the Environment in this page
Chapter Degradation of Various Plastics in the Environment
Search well to get information about measurements such as the specific surface degradation rate (SSDR). Good luck.
Thank you Nizar for sharing these comprehensive articles. But do you know where data from ngo and mainstream media come from ?
I saw several graphics concerning estimates of the "natural" degradation of plastics , like the one you sent, in some magazines few years ago.There were significant differences, between magazines, in the number of years they recorded for a certain item. You know that many magazines do not give references. I usually do not trust non-scientific magazines for scientific information. Had there been references of books or articles by well-known authors, then I would have saved them.
plastic degradation depends environmental condition, our researches investigate in the laboratory so many test to find the rate of degradation but my opinion, in natural environment it will be different and definitely we have to reduce to production, usage and to clean our environment
You may consider the following methods -
1. EN 13432:2000,
2. ASTM D5338:1998
3. ASTM 6400
4. IS/ISO 17088:2008
Hope this helps and you may extract what you intend to.
Regards,
Sayandeep
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