"She told me the "plastics break down" story. Sounded plausible."

>>>Why is it that plastic bottles break down when you want to drink water from them, but last forever when you put them in a landfill?

Good question. maybe one of the resident genius types can tell us.

There are several types of plastic and lots of other stuff blended in. Who knows what plastic you are working with. The latest craze this week is for all our plastics to be made to be burnable as a fuel source. I have no idea if this is a reality but it does point out how plastics aren't all the same.

__________________
http://tinyurl.com/25trx9

03/04/07 "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

02/25/07 "There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action." ~ Bertrand Russell, British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

I'm no resident genius, but the level of "breakdown" seen with water bottles is on a different level than the "breakdown" in a landfill. The diffence...humans are directly ingesting one and not the other. Therefore, concentrations will not be measure the same in both scenarios.

__________________
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Dr. Samuel Johnson