Are You Recycling?
October 28, 2007 by Jennifer
Just some basic figures to consider tonight from Worldwise:
how long will it take to decompose…
Cotton rags
1-5 months
Paper
2-5 months
Rope
3-14 months
Orange peels
6 months
Wool socks
1 to 5 years
Cigarette butts
1 to 12 years
Plastic coated paper milk cartons
5 years
Leather shoes
25 to 40 years
Nylon fabric
30 to 40 years
Tin cans
50 to 100 years
Aluminum cans
80 to 100 years
Plastic 6-pack holder rings
450 years
Glass bottles
1 million years
Plastic bottles
Forever
If you aren’t already recycling (composting counts!) all you can, you need to, or your great grandkids 10 times over are going to find your trash from yesterday. Here’s some help: How to Recycle Practically Anything.
Get the kids involved:
Trash 4 Kids has a great online recycling game for the littles in the house!
Bonus info you’ll love:
To learn more about how scientists date the decomposition process read Will My Plastic Bag Still Be Here in 2507. It’s a great article.
I’ve been crunching up our egg shells and putting them at the bottom of the yogurt containers I recycle as planters. I hope we’ll have a lot more little vegetable plants in the kitchen soon.
i like the way that u tell how long it takes for thing to decompose becuase i got an projet about this and it is realy helpful