How long does it take a plastic grocery bag to decompose in a landfill?

Answer 1

10,00 years. no jokes!

Answer 2

Plastic doesn't decompose, unless it's made of vegetable oil. Normal plastic breaks down eventually into tiny pieces, but they're still tiny pieces of plastic, which kill birds and animals that eat them accidentally.

Answer 3

An average time for a plastic bottle to biodegrade fully is approximately 4-5 mins. However, there are many different kinds of plastic in the world, most commonly the hard and reusable ones, which take a longer time, and the soft and non-reusable ones, which take a shorter time. Time also varies with the size of the bottle.

Answer 4

Depends on the plastic.

A polyethylene or polypropylene bag is good pretty much forever if kept away from strong sunlight (e.i. buried in a landfill). Exposed to sunlight's UV it slowly becomes brittle and flakes away.

Bags with a degradable component like cornstarch or cellulose degrade under biological attack and other factors.

Answer 5

Hard plastic takes centuries to decompose. This is why there is a push among environmentalists to reuse and recycle not only plastics but any material that can be kept out of landfills.

Answer 6

About 400 years. Long time, huh?

Answer 7

100-200 years

Answer 8

3 years