[asow92]

> It also will require a massive shift in our material usage. Bacteria breaking down that plastic bag in the ocean is great. Bacteria setting in on construction, medical devices, or your NES is not so ideal.

That's a great point, and one that may make material planners think twice about using plastics over other materials like metals, woods, or plasters in their projects.

[outworlder]

> over other materials like (...) woods,

Plenty of bugs eat wood. From fungi to termites. And yet we can still use wood for construction.

[asow92]

Some woods like cedar are more resistant. Some kinds of ash are more or less susceptible to beetle damage. It all depends of the application and environment, just like plastics might in this scenario.

[pharke]

The scary one is medical devices. Plastics were a godsend, enabling the mass production of disposable medical equipment that effectively solved a lot of tricky sterilization problems. There are a lot of other things that plastics are the best option for, we would suffer a fairly major technological set back if we were suddenly faced with a plague of plastic eating microbes.

[louky]

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2368220.Mutant_59

[tlholaday]

Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis overwrite compellingly, if the Goodreads excerpt is representative.