Decomposition of items, how our trash sticks around.
Americans alone generate over 4 pounds of waste per person every day, totaling more than 220 million tons of trash each year. The majority of this trash gets sorted and sent to landfills.
Landfills create the second largest source of human-related methane emissions in the country. Unfortunately, that number is continuing to grow, and methane has the potential to trap heat in the atmosphere 25 times more effectively than carbon dioxide.
So how long does that 4 pounds of was per day take up space in a landfill?
- Vegetables = 5 days β1 month
- Paper = 2β6 weeks
- Cardboard = 2 months
- Cotton T-shirt = 6 months
- Orange peels = 6 months
- Tree leaves = 1 year
- Plywood = 1β3 years
- Wool socks = 1β5 years
- Plastic-coated paper milk cartons = 5 years
- Painted Lumber = 13 years
- Lumber = 10β15 years
- Leather shoes = 25β40 years
- Nylon fabric = 30β40 years
- Tin cans = 50β100 years
- Aluminium cans = 80β100 years
- Wet wipes = 100 years
- Batteries = 100 years
- Synthetic fabric = 100-plus years
- Straws = 200 years
- Plastic bottles = 70-450 yearsΒ
- 6-pack holders = 450 years
- Plastic bottle caps = 10β500 years
- Hairspray bottles = 200β500 years
- Disposable diapers = 500 years
- Fishing line = 600 years
- Tires = 2,000 years
- Ink cartridges = 450β1,000 years
- Glass bottles = 1 million years
- Plastic bags = 500 years to never
- Acrylic = 500 years to never
- Aluminum foil = never
- Styrofoam = never
Unfortunately this is not the whole story, some things NEVER actually disappear, instead they just become smaller particles (including Glass and Plastic). Plastic of course is the unnatural and harmful one in the environment and to us!
Microplastic is the most serious issue with plastic right now... it's literally in everything. It's generated through producing plastic items as much as it is through waste from plastic! A great article I found by national geographic helps explain this in more detail: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/microplastics/