[jsgreen89]

On one portion of my newly acquired allotment I've found a lot of small fragments of what I think is plastic sheeting. My guess is that somebody was using some polyethene type material, that has then been left on the ground for quite a while. As a result it's kind of gone brittle and broken up into little pieces (usually random pieces around 1cm in size). It kinda has the brittleness of greaseproof paper when you've baked something in the oven.

I spent 2 hours last night on my hands and knees removing 90% of it from the affected area (made harder by walking in the area breaks up the pieces to smaller fragments!), but my question is, could this be a problem in the future if I now dig over that land? I'm guessing that when I do so these small chunks will mix in with the soil and may get smaller, but since it's plastic i'm thinking that it won't decompose in any meaningful way to affect the plant growth.

Any thoughts on this? 

[8doubles]

I do not think it will adversely affect any plants, it will just irritate the hell out of you.

[Runwell-Steve]

If they are small enough I can't see them causing a problem, it's not really any different to having stones in your soil.

[RichardA]

once used some old plastic roof sheets to line a compost bin. Over time it broke up and even now I find pieces and I just pick up what I see when I see them, small as they are. As I do with stones and weeds etc.
Cannot see it would get into or contaminate any plants
R

[Trillium]

Yep, I had the same problem here. Previous owners used layers of green garbage bags to suppress weeds (huge laugh) buried in the soil. Like js I simply picked out what I could and left the rest. The bits don't break down into a toxic cocktail or anything, just annoying as someone pointed out. Pick them out as you come across them.

[Ian_P]

Dig it in it will help with the drainage, a bit like broken polystyrene in the bottom of pots.