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Mystery #2Tier 2-3plastic decay environment

Why does a plastic bottle still sit whole in the ground hundreds of years later?

Drop an apple core in the garden and in a few weeks it is gone. Drop a plastic bottle and it can still be sitting there when you are grown up, and long after that. Some plastic thrown away today will outlast everyone alive now. Why does a plastic bottle still sit whole in the ground hundreds of years later?

A single discarded plastic bottle lying on an otherwise clean sandy beach beside calm water.
Photo: Grandmaster Huon · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

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Why do you reckon plastic refuses to rot away?

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