Which wastes degrade slowly in the environment, taking decades to thousands of years?

• A. Non-biodegradable Wastes
• B. Reservoirs
• C. Slowly Degradable Wastes
• D. LifeStraw

Answer: (C)

Wastes vary in how quickly they break down in the environment. Some materials are able to be decomposed by microorganisms and weathering relatively quickly, while others resist breakdown for a long time. Slowly degradable wastes are those that don’t quickly fall apart—due to their chemical structure or physical form they persist for a long time, typically taking decades to thousands of years to degrade. This slow pace is characteristic of many plastics and other synthetic materials that are not readily biodegradable, yet they do eventually break down at an extremely gradual rate rather than staying forever untouched. That makes slowly degradable wastes the best fit for the description. By comparison, non-biodegradable wastes are defined by their persistence without degradation in many cases, LifeStraw is a water-filter device, and reservoirs are bodies of water, not categories of waste degradation.