Polyethylene (PE), the plastic with the largest production volume globally (>110 million tons per year), is mainly used in short term applications. A high molecular weight PE with a carbon main chain is not biodegradable; however, its lower molecular weight oligomers (M∼500−1,000 g/mol) are reported to undergo microbial degradation. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in PE-like materials that can be degraded into shorter chain segments to augment the materials susceptible to biodegradation. This review highlights research concerning the introduction of hydrolysable repeating units, such as carboxylic esters, carbonates, phosphate esters, or acetal groups, into the PE main-chain. The strategy offers new opportunities in the design of PE-like materials with an enhanced ability to undergo controlled degradation, which can take place at the stage defined by the user and enables closed-loop chemical recyclability. This mini-review highlights typical examples of PE-like materials with hydrolytically labile groups in the main-chain and discusses the influence of such groups on the degradability of resulting polymers.