let us just create a new kind of hydrocarbon and make it readily available in the soil and water across the planet; there is no way that life will respond to this

@Lady Certain bacteria already can consume certain plastics under the right circumstances, but those circumstances are pretty unusual. The paleontological record indicates it took millions of years for bacteria to evolve to regularly digest wood, so it could be a while. At any rate, if you keep something sufficiently clean and dry, it can last decades even if made out of natural materials like wood. Could definitely make plastic less useful in wet environments though.