Plastics and plastic-based composites may suffer swelling, debonding and loss of strength when exposed to organic fluids and other corrosive environments, such as acids and alkalies. Under the influence of stress and environment, many structural materials, particularly the high-specific strength ones become brittle and lose their resistance to fracture. While their fracture toughness remains unaltered, their threshold stress intensity factor for crack propagation may be considerably lowered. Consequently, they become prone to premature fracture because of sub-critical crack growth. This article aims to give a brief overview of the various degradation processes mentioned above.