[mdp2021]

> break down

If there exists a use of "«break down»" intended to mean "biodegrade", the term remains too close to "crumble".

You would not eat a bottle, but having tiny chunks of plastic around makes "you eat 5 grams of plastic - one credit card - per <period>" fully credible (i.e. you want it to stay big to stay out of the body - you want materials not to shed themselves around). Crumbling plastic just creates microplastic. Which is relevant, because some actors seem to have confused the goals - transforming vs pulverizing.

(See e.g. https://theconversation.com/were-all-ingesting-microplastics... ; https://theconversation.com/youre-eating-microplastics-in-wa... )

[cushpush]

Break down means "to biodegrade" in American English, among other meanings

[mdp2021]

In the case of plastic, you have a chemical issue. The linguistic issue - the ambiguity and the "poor choice", that plastic will more easily "break down" in chunks, not in de-structured carbon etc. -, can point to that.

We are already seeing some material variations that are strongly ineffective for their intended purpose, and that will contribute more to the diffusion of microplastic instead of (re-)cycling.