Plastic pollution is a serious-and growing-environmental problem, with millions of tons of bags, bottles, fishing gear and more piling up on land and floating out to sea. But just how long does it last-and how can we innovate new materials to address the problem moving forward? WHOI scientists are investigating both issues.
It’s easy to think the sole problem with plastic lies in its long life. Some estimates put the lifespan of some kinds of plastic as high as 1,000 years. But until recently, we didn’t really know how long plastic persists. Now that scientists have begun to investigate, they’re discovering plastic doesn’t last for millennia, but it also doesn’t break down fast enough, and we need to innovate new materials that cause less harm.
To be clear: there is no single „plastic“ at the root of the issue. „Plastics are not numbers 1 through 7,“ says WHOI marine chemist Collin Ward. Rather, they’re a complex mixture of base polymers and additives. Take the base polymer polyethylene, for example, the most widely used plastic on the planet.
→ „There are hundreds of different types of polyethylene, and thousands of different chemicals are added to polyethylene to try to increase performance or increase the way it can be processed and shaped or molded into the goods we use,“ Ward explains…
Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | Ocean Learning Hub (2025)
