How long does it take for paper to rot? Waste decomposition time: how many generations will your trash bin survive?

When you accidentally drop a bottle of ketchup on the floor, you mentally thank the manufacturer for the plastic packaging. Most containers, cups and bottles are made using polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. This is a material that is practically indestructible.

But when it comes time to throw that same bottle in the landfill, you'll probably have other thoughts on your mind. Now the feeling of gratitude to manufacturers is replaced by shame for their behavior. We regularly buy plastic packaging and then throw it away. However, petroleum-based materials (such as PET) do not degrade organically.

What is biodegradation?

Wood, grass, and wood completely decompose in the soil relatively quickly. food waste. Biodegradation is the name of a process that destroys complex substances as a result of the activity of living organisms (for example, earthworms or bacteria). In practice, microorganisms transform organic materials (paper, cardboard, weeds, vegetable and fruit residues) into other useful compounds suitable for increasing soil fertility.

Ecology in danger

However, neither bacteria nor worms will want to deal with plastic. You can conduct an experiment in a compost bin garden plot. Load one side with organic materials for these little gluttons and fill the other with plastic bags and bottles. Be sure to water well and then cover with a layer of soil. When checking the condition of the compost pit during the summer, you will find crumbly humus on one side. On the other hand, your “gifts” will remain untouched. At best, plastic will decompose within 200 years.

Daniel Bird's discovery

Of course, this is not the end of the story. Behind last years several have been registered in scientific circles outstanding discoveries. For example, Daniel Bird, a student at the University of Waterloo, proved that certain types of bacteria can destroy plastic. His research won the top prize at the Canada-wide Science Fair, earning the young scientist $10,000 in cash and a $20,000 scholarship.

Photoaging process

And while other researchers are replicating Byrd’s experiment and waiting for results, let’s look for others possible methods plastic decomposition. The only one in a real way The decomposition of this material can be considered a process of photoaging, which requires a lot of sunlight, not bacteria. When UV rays penetrate plastic, they break the bonds that hold this long polymer chain together. It will take a long time, but someday big piece plastic will disintegrate into many small elements.

Finding a solution to the problem

Landfills are filled with polyethylene terephthalate products, but most of them are safely hidden from view. sun rays. There is an alternative option for trying to decompose plastic, which is unlikely to please environmentalists. The world's oceans absorb tons of waste, and water allows ultraviolet rays to penetrate into the very depths. Researchers from Nihon University (Japan) concluded in 2007 that plastic immersed in warm ocean water begins to lose its structure within a year.

The oceans are like a garbage dump

You won't notice anything reprehensible about this until you think about the marine life. Hidden in these microscopic pieces of decomposing plastic are toxic substances. When these toxins enter the intestines of animals, they can cause death marine fauna. Well, the tides throw decaying pieces of plastic onto the sea beaches. Vacationers think that they are going to the sea to improve their health, but their health suffers.

How can I solve this problem?

One way to prevent biological disaster is to use biodegradable plastic. Currently, food packaging is being developed from corn and polylactic acid, which breaks down into carbon dioxide and water over a period of 50 to 90 days.

Every day, during the life of one person, about a kilogram of garbage is generated. Tons accumulate in cities every day household waste. How long does it take for garbage to decompose? depends on what it was originally, more precisely, whether objects were made or produced from natural or industrial material.

Garbage can be of organic or inorganic origin, and its decomposition period can range from a couple of weeks to decades.

How long does it take for organic waste to completely decompose?

• Organic products natural origin decompose quite quickly: animal droppings turn into valuable fertilizer in just 10 days.
• Small plant remains - fallen leaves, fruits, seeds, dried grass - gradually rot and completely turn into humus within a month, at least for next year. Therefore, it is better to use all this organic “wealth” in the fall for the benefit of your garden or even flower bed. Large branches take much longer to decompose - up to 10 years.
• Before you throw an eaten banana peel on the ground, you should think carefully: after all, its decomposition period can reach six months.
• Leftover food will be processed by bacteria that cause rotting in a couple of weeks (or even faster).
• It will take about three years for clothes made from cotton, viscose, or linen to completely decompose.
• Products made from natural wool are subject to destruction by microorganisms in a shorter period - about a year.
• Paper waste decomposes into different terms: a regular bus ticket disappears in a month, newspapers and books disappear in 2 years, and waxed paper disappears in at least 5 years.

You should not burn paper and food waste together: as a result of such combustion, harmful substances are formed - dioxides.

How long does it take for different types of waste to decompose?

Wood products, like large wood debris, decompose within up to 10 years, but much depends on what kind of treatment the wood was subjected to. If it takes about 4 years for ordinary planed boards to decompose, then boards coated with varnish or painted with oil paint will take longer - more than 13 years.

A convenient and widespread packaging for many food products is a jar. It takes about 10 years for an iron can to completely decompose, a tin container takes longer to decompose - up to 90 years, and an aluminum container will take up to 500 years to completely disappear from the face of the earth.

Polyethylene bags, in which most goods are packaged, decompose within 100 to 200 years.

A cigarette butt, or rather a cigarette filter, thrown on the ground will take up to 3 years to disintegrate.

Every housewife uses sponges for washing dishes, the decomposition period of which is about two centuries.

The invention of disposable diapers has made life easier for many young mothers: there is no need for tedious washing of diapers and baby clothes. But few people know that the decomposition period of a used diaper is about 500 years. The same, by the way, applies to feminine sanitary pads. It would be more logical to use for kids and.

Regular chewing gum in warm climatic conditions disappears in 30 years, and in the cold it can survive for hundreds of years.

As you can see, garbage decomposition time has a wide range, and you need to know about it, and in some cases you can give things used for their intended purpose a “second life,” for example, to make or for flowers.

And in conclusion, we can recall the statement of the American comedian George Carlin. At one of his speeches, discussing the harm caused to nature by people, he said: “The planet is not going anywhere. We will disappear."

Thinking about environmental problems, it should be understood that we are not saving the earth, but, first of all, ourselves.

If you accidentally drop a bottle of water at your feet, you will breathe a sigh of relief, thinking “how good it is that scientists have invented such a practical material as plastic.” After all, if it weren’t for him, the floor would have been filled with liquid, and you risked stepping on sharp fragments.

Imagine that you went on a hike and, of course, took with you mineral water in a plastic bottle. After a few hours, all the water is used up and the unnecessary plastic can be thrown away. But here’s the problem - there’s not a single trash can around, and the thought creeps into my head: “should I throw this bottle somewhere here - sooner or later the plastic will decompose.” But a responsible and sensible person would never do that. Organic materials such as wood, when buried in soil, are quickly decomposed and turned into compost by bacteria. But when it comes to plastic, bacteria won't help with its decomposition.

It may seem like an abandoned plastic bottle will take forever to decompose, but of course this is not the case. Where bacteria cannot help, sunlight will help. Ultraviolet rays destroy the molecular structure of plastic, gradually turning plastic bottle into a pile of small plastic shards. This process is especially noticeable in those parts of the ocean where currents plastic trash collected into huge islands from plastic bottles and plastic bags. Ecologists have noticed that if new garbage does not join the “island,” it begins to shrink over time. It has been established that when exposed to direct sunlight, an ordinary plastic bottle breaks down in about a year.

Can you breathe a sigh of relief - has the problem of plastic decomposition been solved? Not at all. The harmful substances contained in plastic are not going away. Decomposed on the surface of the ocean plastic box releases toxic substances (for example bisphenol A, which causes oncological diseases), which, sinking to the bottom, poison sea ​​creatures, settling in their gills.

No plastic bottles or bags modern civilization can no longer imagine his life, but the problem of environmental pollution with plastic must be solved in as soon as possible. Most promising idea the use of natural products for production is seen plastic containers. Advantages this method are obvious: a plastic bag made, for example, from corn starch will decompose in just half a month.

In the meantime, new technologies are on the way, each of us can contribute to the preservation surrounding nature. To do this, you just need to throw the plastic bottle or bag into the designated place, and not throw it away anywhere.

If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.

I have long wanted to “launch” this topic on the blog. It concerns the problem of garbage and pollution of our planet. Well, who doesn’t observe this terrible picture of pollution of cities and villages, especially in the last decades. Of course, it is connected with the activities of mankind and the development of production technologies. We have learned how to produce, but not how to destroy waste from this production. This topic is especially relevant for the countries of the so-called third world and... CIS countries.

It is now sad and mournful to look at everything that is happening related to littering and pollution: how will future generations live on this planet, which has been turned into a garbage dump?

As a result of the development of technologies in the sphere of consumption, the materials from which objects are made self-destruct (decompose) for a very long time and more and more of them appear. This needs to be dealt with somehow. And immediately!

And now, for reference:

examples of types of materials and products that can pollute the environment until they are completely decomposed

progressively, starting with examples where the product decomposes faster and ends with the longest spontaneously destroyed one.

1. Animal waste products

Simply put, droppings from animals living in cities and in which humans are somehow involved.

The period of “self-destruction” is not long - 10-15 days, but this does not reduce the problematic nature of the issue. Why is clear without explanation :).

2. Food waste

Decomposition time is about a month. But the smell from decomposition products is usually very unpleasant.

3. Newspaper

Decomposes within one to three months. Depending on the weather conditions and other environmental reasons. However, as with most other types of garbage.

4. Leaves, twigs and seeds - “tree-bush”

the garbage that street cleaners “work” with and that participants in cleanup work actively fight with :)

The decay period is three to four months.

5. Cardboard and boxes made from it

Decomposes within three months. Or even more.

6. Office paper

Office (“writing”) paper takes longer to decompose than newspaper and cardboard: two years.

7. Construction boards

The decomposition period reaches ten years.

8. Cans

In normal environments they decompose within ten years.

9. Old shoes

When thrown into a landfill, it is destroyed in approximately 10 years.

10. Iron products

They turn into iron oxide (i.e. decompose) in 10-20 years. Depending on the “texture”.

11. Car batteries

Destroyed in about 100 years.

12. Foil

And it will take more than 100 years for it to disintegrate...

13. Electric batteries

For some reason, they “live” before decomposition longer than batteries—about 110 years.

14. Rubber tires

Can only decompose within 120-140 years.

15. Plastic bottles

This very common product of the creation of mankind and its high technologies over the past 30 years brings many benefits. But such bottles, alas, take a very long time to decompose: whole 200 years!

16. Aluminum cans

It's a terrible thing, I tell you. Aluminum decomposes within 500 years. It’s understandable - non-ferrous metal. But it’s just in vain that they began to use it for domestic purposes, probably. It’s good that the homeless collect them and hand them over to scrap metal collection points.

17. Glass

Oh, this is glass... A product that humanity invented a long time ago and there is no point in talking about its benefits and significance for people. One thing is unpleasant: of all the products created using the technology of processing silicon into this transparent liquid and solid under normal conditions, it is very difficult to “evaporate”. Glass takes longer to break apart than any other household product - more than 1000 years! Citizens, do not throw glass in places where people and other fauna and flora live! Take care of nature and our Planet!

You can find a lot of information on the Internet about decomposition times. different types waste, however, as a rule, no official source of information is indicated and some figures are questionable. The Epoch Times analyzed several specialized sources on English language, to clarify the time frame during which garbage decomposes. The publication presents infographics for a more visual understanding.

According to environmental policy expert Tatiana Tevkun, official landfills alone occupy about 7% of Ukraine's territory. At the same time, waste accumulation increases by 5-7% annually.

Although individual city residents can take waste to specialized collection points marked during the Epoch Times, the issue has not been resolved at the state level, and the majority of the population continues to throw all waste into one box.

Let's see how many years it will take for the waste that ends up in a landfill to decompose.

The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services website has published a list that gives an idea of ​​the approximate decomposition time of some items that end up in the trash.

At the same time, the decomposition period of plastic bags given in this table raises doubts. Many Ukrainian sources give their decomposition period as 100-200 years. Some sources give a figure of 500 or even 1000 years. However, it is impossible to establish an exact figure for the reason that plastic bags They have been used for a little over 50 years, and scientists determine the decomposition period only experimentally.

At the same time, environmentalists say that even biodegradable bags may never break down completely. This is due to the fact that when they decompose to the smallest particles, microorganisms do not want to process them. Thus, microparticles of plastic will continue to exist in an unprocessed form, although they are not visible to the naked eye. Scientists have yet to study the influence of these particles on nature.

We also suggest that you get acquainted with data from another Western source dedicated to recycling waste - .

The website publishes the average value of decomposition times various waste on garbage dumps taken from Western information sources.

It takes over a million years for glass and ceramics to break down into smaller things under the influence of water, but they can survive indefinitely in the ground.

The decomposition period of paper is not very long, but lead dyes end up in water bodies with runoff, making the water unfit for drinking, poisoning the soil and everything that grows on it.

Of course, not everything we throw away causes damage. environment, organic waste is even useful, as it fertilizes the earth. The decomposition time of organic waste is minimal, but when it accumulates in city landfills, it produces an unpleasant odor and attracts insects and rodents that spread various infectious diseases. At the same time, it is believed that the methane gas released organic waste in a landfill, contributes to global warming.

One of the most hazardous waste are batteries and energy-saving lamps containing mercury. One battery is believed to pollute 20 meters of area or 400 liters of water.

Much of what we throw into landfills can get a second life. Sorting waste that has already ended up in a landfill is a rather difficult and costly task; the only way out is to separate human waste at the level of each family.