‘Technofossils’: how humanity’s eternal testament will be plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones

Fast fashion and drinks cans among technological-age matter most likely to endure as fossils, say scientists

As an eternal testament of humanity, plastic bags, cheap clothes and chicken bones are not a glorious legacy. But two scientists exploring which items from our technological civilisation are most likely to survive for many millions of years as fossils have reached an ironic but instructive conclusion: fast food and fast fashion will be our everlasting geological signature.

Plastic will definitely be a signature technofossil', because it is incredibly durable, we are making massive amounts of it, and it gets around the entire globe," says the palaeontologist Prof Sarah Gabbott, a University of Leicester expert on the way that fossils form. So wherever those future civilisations dig, they are going to find plastic. There will be a plastic signal that will wrap around the globe."