Plastics enter the environment as plastic litter, which generally degrades into microplastics (MPs). In the environment, polymers degrade due to unintended chemical, mechanical, and biological effects, resulting in a material with deteriorated properties that is no longer suitable for the intended purpose. The rate of degradation of plastic debris is determined by polymer properties such as chemical composition, structure, additives, and so on, as well as prolonged exposure to sunlight, humidity, mechanical stress, and depositional environments such as soil, freshwater, and seawater. Degradation results in the formation and transformation of MPs, which further degrade into nanoplastics, influencing their long-term fate and effects. The problem is worsened by the fact that plastics degrade in numerous ways based on their characteristics and the environment they are exposed to. In this study, naturally aged polypropylene (PP) items along with forty-four naturally degraded polyethylene (PE) lobster trap tags were examined for environmental degradation that were collected from the environment. Lobster tags were used as a temporal indicator of plastic litter in the environment because of the manufacturing dates printed on them. Some of the PP items were older than forty years, while the oldest PE tag was manufactured in 1983. The results showed that several PP items had severe degradation, which had a significant impact on fragmentation. The degradation of the PE tags is not directly related to the time of manufacture. According to Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, the oldest PE tag, manufactured in 1983, appears to be robust, whereas a lobster tag manufactured in 2007 shows the greatest degradation. One interesting pattern observed was that the red-colored lobster tags degraded the most, while the blue-colored tags degraded the least. There appears to be an effect of item coloring, implying that additives play an important role in degradation.