how long does plastic take to degrade? (ancient civillisations/atlantis)

Plastic is toxic. I'm not sure of it being a sign of "advanced civilization".

Technologically advanced anyway, if atlantis/lemuria ever existed then the stories say she fell for a reason

Most things have gone in about 10- 20000 years. The only thing remaining is unweathered stone and deeply burried artifacts.

depending on formulation, and cross section, anywhere from a few years if exposed to sunlight, to damn near "forever". ambiguous enough an answer for you?

Thanks for that, interesting given that with ancient civilisation in this instance we're talking 40-50000+....

Perhaps we should look at ancient artefacts as the metal parts of a bigger object

IF they ever existed, they were most likely too advanced to use plastic. They probably relied on "Qi" or "Prana" more so than fossil fuels as a source of energy

thanks for the information. It's an avenue of thought worth looking at

Well OP, assuming that an advanced ancient civilization worked with plastics, I've read in chemistry journals that a milk carton would take 2000 years. I have heard dirty hippy liberals say 10K years.

Of course, since this process has been around for only a century essentially, give a take a decade, I'd say no more than 10K years.

So, theoretically, if a civilization existed 15K years ago, most traces of them could be all but gone. Hell, they could have had Macbook Pros and we wouldn't know it.

That is also assuming that used plastics.

Yeah in a civilisation that cared about our world, however these civilisations were wiped out for a reason if the stories are to be believed

Along the same lines as i was thinking, cheers :)

what ancient "flourishing" civilizations? no general population burial sites missing 100 million people and 100's of millions of personal daily artifacts dont just disappear...all the ruins were ruins to begin with,with their human remain props and histories were written for them...the lack of enough physical evidence proves this...remains of industries to feed and cloth that many people just dont disappear either...the lies are wayyyyyyy bigger than you think...the key word is flourishing...

Nature takes good care of decay. Here's a documentary about organic decay processes.

[link to www.youtube.com]

I've been searching for a documentary about decay of civilization - how cars rot and how corrosion processes take care of just about eveything. Not able to find that just yet.

Here you go:

[link to www.youtube.com]

An excellent documentary about what would happen when humans should suddenly disappear. It's in 9 parts.

Thats the one! Thanks!

How do you know they used oil based plastics? They could have used something else that breaks down much faster like hemp seed oil to make plastic IF and that's a big IF they even had plastic.

The earth is billions of years old, and has been through numerous cycles of civilization and depopulation. Each of which has been seperated by hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

There's evidence of some of those civilizations, but they are buried beneath oceans and deserts.

I do not believe that plastic, even if buried, will last long enough to be found hundreds of thousands or millions of years later.

microbes are able of adaptation, they are capable to adjust their metabolism and synthetize new enzymes, new chemicals to degrade new matter. E.g. some thirty years ago the polycarboxylates added to water (either as an inhibitor of scaling, or as floculants, etc.) were passing through a waste water treatment plant without losses. During the time bacteria in activated sludge adapted their enzyme system to new chemicals and nowadays polycarboxylates are decomposed in WWTPs. Similar situation was with oil pollution. Item est the degradation of plastic material should be according to my opinion a question of several centuries as max., probably perhaps decades, but sure not thousands of years.

And maybe the ruins of Atlantis is just about or much more than 20.000 years

but stone lasts... so if you would find Atlantis and it used stone

I have heard dirty hippy liberals say 10K years


I'd say no more than 10K years

There is a bacteria that consumes plastic... It can degrade in months. However unaided, it can last for a few thousand years. It is unlikely that ancient civizations produced plastics though, however how some buildings were constructed with tight fitting stones, are still unknown but some evidence points to a plant (juices) that smooths stone or unidentified advanced concrete technologies

Could be 26000 to 30000 - the precession of the equinoxes. And before that, cycle after cycle.

It seems that someboy a long time ago, understood how to preserve. .

Somebody*

My sources say that in spite of the advancements of past civilizations, lost or otherwise, Plastics were purely the invention of this age.

They simply were not stumbled on to in the past. At least not here.