Sooner or later it is likely that microbes which can digest plastics but are currently extremely rare, will multiply, become common and evolve since we are making plastic pollution increasingly common throughout soils and seas.

What will be the timescale and effect of a new category of microbes on earthly micro-flora? In soils, in foodchains and within our own guts ? This uncertainty presents an unpredictable biohazard. An intelligent population having noticed its accidental emissions would try to limit and reduce them in scale for its own and future generations biological security.