Life Span of Litter
- Aluminum Can 200-500 years
- Batteries – 100 years
- Cardboard Box- 4 weeks
- Cigarette Butt up to 10 years
- Cotton Rag- 1-5 months
- Disposable Diapers- 500-600 years years
- Glass Bottle 1Million years
- Leather- up to 50 years
- Lumber- 10-15 years
- Monofilament Fishing Line- 800 years
- Milk Cartons (plastic coated) 5 years
- Nylon Fabric- 30-40 years
- Orange Peel- 2-5 weeks
- Paper-2-5 months
- Plastic Film Container- 20-30 years
- Painted Wooden Stake- 13 years
- Plastic 6 pack cover 450 years
- Plastic Bag- up to 500 years
- Plastic Coated Paper- 5 years
- Plastic Soda Bottles- Forever
- Rope-3-14 months
- Rubber Boot sole 50-80 years
- Sanitary Pads= 500-800 years
- Styrofoam- More than 5,000 years
- Tin Cans-50-100 years
- Tin Foil- It does not biodegrade
- Wool Clothing- 1-5 years
Landfill Waste 2003
- 970 thousand tons of paper cups and plates were discarded in 2003 (EPA).
- 64 billion paper cups and plates being thrown away every year in USA.
- 730 thousand tons of styrofoam and plastic plates and cups (710 thousand tons were styrofoam)
- 73 billion mostly styrofoam cups and plates being thrown away every year in USA.
- 3,810 thousand tons of plastic containers & bottles were thrown away in 2003.
- 90 billion plastic containers & bottles being landfilled or incinerated every year.
The above numbers do not include trash bags, grocery bags and other plastic materials like trays, utensils, clam shells, caps and other plastic packaging. A total of 8000 thousand tons of these items were discarded in 2003.
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Just curious where you got your information from? Can you site your sources?
The statistics came from wikipedia, America the Beautiful, most Trash Trivia games. These seem to be the standards that were set about 10 years ago.
You need to get your “science” from someplace other than Wikipedia, because your figures are preposterous.
Whose guess was it that plastic bottles never biodegrade? Everything biodegrades.
Not everything biodegrades, cement does not biodegrade, plastic take hundred of years to biodegrade.
How long does nuclear waste to biodegrade? Both medical/industrial and utility power plants?
makes you think twice about what you use, eh?
What are the tests done in order to know this? How do scientists know how long it takes for things to decompose?
The earth will cease to exist in the next 90 years a predicted by some of the worlds top scientists including professor John Brown and Lord Martin Rees as well as many others. Yet we cannot accept the fact that the next few generations ahead will face the consequences that we have caused and are too ignorant to change. We have to alter the way we see the worldbecayse if we don’t life on earth will die out.
Plastic does NOT biodegrade, because it is not make of organic matter. It simple breaks into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic until, after who knows how long, it is finally broken down to it’s molecular level. The molecules eventually break down into atoms, and the plastic no longer is plastic. Look in any scientific book about plastic, and you will find this information.
AMAZING!! Thanks sooo much, you cited it, it is pretty useful information, and your site looks great! It was very useful for my science fair project and helped a lot. So once again thanks so much for this site! <3
wow! great information: this was very helpful for a school project i had to do on biodegradeble materials and worm bins…best site I found on the internet! thanks so much!
Dose anyone know what a plastic water bottle is made of and why it takes a long time to decompose?????? Just curious.
how can people heip with this problem
HELP STOP LITTER
this is a good site i think about stuff that biodegrades or not and if it biodegrades you can eat it because it’s awesome
That is so interesting