Biodegradable

bi·o·de·grad·a·bleadjective

A once-living substance or object that becomes capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms — often to live again through growth or repurpose.

The cool kids dared me to throw an apple out the bus window.

My dad would throw banana peels out his car window and told me it was fine because they're biodegradable, so I thought it would be the same case here.

I didn't consider that it might hit a car. https://t.co/eIA27RH3Js
Cari diaper bag mcm ni, ikat ketat2, bau dia tak keluar plus dia biodegradable and ada fragrance!! Simpan stok dlm beg or kereta. Mudah je sebenarnya.

https://t.co/QToeaC9QgP https://t.co/m0s3WBaMGT
#NEW: @NaCRRI & @BangorUni have developed a crop residue-based biodegradable plastic for seedling potting to replace single-use plastics that are a manace to the environment. https://t.co/lNh168svgF
🔴IMPORTANTE | Hoy hay un juicio en contra de la ciencia. Científicas que están acusadas de dañar un edificio público con pintura inocua biodegradable. Ellas protestaron para alertarnos de la emergencia climática, responden con penas de cárcel. Increíble. El mundo al revés. https://t.co/9ncAM2kmXh
Love this.

As a world we must work with our oil industry to transition our world away from oil based plastic to more natural and truly biodegradable and or materials we can create our @circulareconomy with.

I knew decades ago we would mine our landfills and now we can do… https://t.co/khndBWMLf9
@RWApodcast "Ukrainian army resorting to antique century old gun designs"

Military materiel isn't biodegradable... https://t.co/hF8cwMBLEW
via Google Ngram

And should biologic time run out and some plastics remain, there is always geologic time. The upheavals and pressure will change it into something else. Just like trees buried in bogs a long time ago—the geologic process, not biodegradation, changed them into oil and coal. Maybe high concentrations of plastics will turn into something like that. Eventually, they will change. Change is the hallmark of nature. Nothing remains the same.

Alan Weisman, The World Without Us

Select Examples

‘Plastic is like that,’ Oliver was saying. ‘It never biodegrades. It gets churned around in the gyre and ground down into particles. Oceanographers call it confetti. In a granular state, it hangs around forever.’

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

most plastics in use today are simply not biodegradable and are in fact, highly resistant to degradation. Indeed, the billions of tonnes of plastics already released into the environment, since the origin of their creation, remain with us to the present day in one form or another and may take thousands of years to completely degrade.

Christopher Blair Crawford, Microplastic Pollutants

Geographical Interest

Country-level searches for “Biodegradable” over the past 5 years via GoogleTrends data