An Uncharacteristic Green Note

Check out how long each of these products take to decompose in the environment…

Banana Peel: 3-4 weeks
Paper Bag: 1 month
Cotton Rag: 5 months
Wool Sock : 1 year
Lumber : 10-15 years
Tinned Steel Can: 80-100 years
Aluminum Can : 200-500 years (But if recycled, it can be reused within 6 weeks!)
Disposable Diapers: 500-600 years
Plastic Bags : 1 million years
Glass : Unknown
Styrofoam: Eternity

Knowing this, I was surprised to have a friend point out the friendly little recyclable logo on the bottom of a Styrofoam plate. But recycling centers for polystyrene plastics such as Styrofoam and Thermocol are not common.

The truth is, if you aren't sorting your trash and shipping off your recyclables to recycling centers, then recyclability and the decomposition rates posted above do not apply. Your garbage is going to a landfill somewhere, where biodegradation slows to a snail's pace, if it occurs at all. I'm sure you've heard about the 20-year-old newspapers, excavated from a landfill, that were still legible.

What's the holdup? Well, for one thing safety and economy trump decomposition rates in landfill construction, and for another, the presence of recyclables slows the biodegradation process. National Geographic estimates that U.S. landfills consist of 40% to 50% paper waste, 20% to 30% construction debris, and 1.2% disposable diapers.

So please,

Reduce,
Reuse,
Recycle.