Biodegradation
decomposition by living organisms
Biodegradation is the breakdown of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi. In contrast to biodegradation, phytodegradation, which has few applications, relies on green plants to effect the degradation.
In practice, almost all chemical compounds and materials are subject to biodegradation, the limiting element being time. Vegetables may degrade within days, whereas some plastics can take a lot of time to degrade. A standard for biodegradability used by the European Union is that greater than 90% of the original material must be converted into CO2, water, and minerals by biological processes within 6 months. Biodegradation does not apply to elements; thus heavy metal pollutants do not biodegrade.
Mechanisms
The process of biodegradation can be divided into three stages: biodeterioration, biofragmentation, and assimilation. Biodeterioration is sometimes described as a surface-level degradation that modifies the mechanical, physical and chemical properties of the material. This stage occurs when the material is exposed to abiotic factors in the outdoor environment and allows for further degradation by weakening the material's structure. Some abiotic factors that influence these initial changes are compression (mechanical), light, temperature and chemicals in the environment.
“Biodegradation” enters the record as decomposition by living organisms. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Biodegradation, decomposition and living can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Biodegradation” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Biodegradation, decomposition and living provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q696715. The Library of Congress control number is sh85014130. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Biodegradation” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.