[spodek]

The problem isn't the volume. It's the distribution.

Some of it is in your bloodstream. And your children's, messing with your and their endocrine systems, among other problems. Some of it is in the bellies animals around the world. How do you plan to get it?

We can't beat the laws of thermodynamics. The stuff is out there and dispersing more.

[mehrdadn]

You had me until thermodynamics. We're obviously not getting every substance in our bloodstream like we are with plastics so I don't think thermodynamics is the issue here.

[FlyingAvatar]

I think he was referring specifically to entropy in his reference to thermodynamics. Once we extract the source materials from the earth, turn them into plastics and distribute them, there is no cheap way to undo it.

[mehrdadn]

The following sentence was about dispersion in the world and not about the chemical reactions in creating plastic, so I don't think that's what was meant.

[spodek]

I meant what FlyingAvatar suggested.

Quoting Wikipedia: In statistical mechanics, entropy is an extensive property of a thermodynamic system. It is closely related to the number Ω of microscopic configurations (known as microstates) that are consistent with the macroscopic quantities that characterize the system.

and

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases over time.

Applied here, when plastic breaks into pieces, the number of microstates -- ie, the entropy -- increases.

It's not the same as the ideal gas law, but similar.