The grim facts behind plastic decomposition

April 25, 2018

The latest CIG infographic on plastic waste reveals that almost every piece of plastic that has ever been created “still exists in some form or another”, except for the “tiny percentage” which has been incinerated.

It then goes on to reveal how long it takes different items to biodegrade.

Styrofoam cups take 50 years, aluminium cans take 200 years, nappies and plastic bottles both take 450 years, while toner cartridges take a whopping 1,000 years to break down.

As CIG explains, this is because the plastics used to make printer cartridges “are composed of an engineering grade polymer. This polymer has a very slow decomposition rate that can take up to 1,000 years to fully decompose, depending on the cartridge type. The printer ink/toner may also leak when discarded, which contributes to pollution in the surrounding environment.”

CIG’s other infographic stories can be found here, here and here.