Throwing waste into nature is not without consequences. It sticks around for a long time, sometimes a very long time. Natural habitats are full of this waste that takes years to break down, some of it polluting the environment by fragmenting into increasingly fine particles. The oceans suffer, as we know, especially from the invasion of plastic waste.
Waste in nature: from a few weeks to a few hundred years
An object you discard carelessly can pollute for a long time after you are gone. Here is a selection of objects or products with their natural lifespans: how long do they take to decompose without external intervention, in nature?
You can download this practical sheet as a PDF.
How quickly do our waste decompose naturally?
Littering in nature remains on the list of environmental problems that are hard to curb.
Lifespan of the fastest “biodegradable” waste:
- Toilet paper: 2 weeks to 1 month
- Apple core: 1 to 5 months
- Paper tissue: 3 months
- Fruit peel: 3 to 6 months
- Newspaper: 6 to 12 months
- Milk carton: up to 5 months
- Match: 6 months
- Daily newspaper: 3 to 12 months
Waste decomposing from 12 months to 10 years:
- Cigarette butt: 1 to 5 years
- Bus or subway ticket: about 1 year
- Wool glove or sock: 1 year
- Candy wrapper: 5 years
- Chewing gum: 5 years
- Used oil: 5 to 10 years
Waste decomposing from 10 years to 1,000 years:
- Steel can: 100 years
- Aluminum can: 10 to 100 years
An average adult consumes nearly 600 cans of carbonated beverages per year. - Tire: 100 years
- Printer cartridge: 400 to 1,000 years
- Plastic lighter: 100 years
- Painted wooden plank: 13 to 15 years
- Cesium-137: 30 years
- Can: 50 years
- Polystyrene container: 50 years
- Polystyrene object: 80 years
- Aluminum box: 100 to 500 years
- Mercury battery: 200 years
- Disposable diaper: 400 to 450 years
- Sanitary napkin or tampon: 400 to 450 years
- Medical protective masks: 400 to 450 years
- Plastic bag: 450 years
- Modern fishing net: 600 years
Discarded waste is a source of visual pollution, but it also contributes to soil, water pollution or threats to biodiversity. For example, a cigarette butt can pollute 500 liters of water or a cubic meter of snow.
One liter of used motor oil can cover 1,000 m² of water and thus prevent the oxygenation of marine flora and fauna for several years. Moreover, when discharged into the wastewater system, used oil clogs filters in treatment plants and disrupts biological purification processes.
Lifespan of the most resistant waste:
- Bank card: 1,000 years
- Expanded polystyrene: 1,000 years
- Plastic bottle: 100 to 1,000 years
- Ski pass: 1,000 years
- Glass: 4 to 5,000 years
Lifespan of nuclear waste:
- Iodine-131: 8 days
- Iodine-125: 60 days
- Radium-226: 1,600 years
- Carbon-14: 5,730 years
- Plutonium-239: 24,000 years
- Potassium-40: 1.3 billion years
- Uranium-238: 4.5 billion years
The number of waste items produced worldwide is difficult to estimate. According to a World Bank report, in 2018 global waste generation stood at 2 billion metric tons per year, or 63 metric tons of waste generated every second! Without changes, this figure could rise to 3.4 billion metric tons by 2050.
Hundreds of kilos per year
In 2023, France (all waste: industry, construction, households…) produced 345 million metric tons of waste. This amounts to 5.1 metric tons per person per year.
What this means for households in 2021 is that 41 million metric tons of household and similar waste were collected in France (metropolitan France and Réunion) by the public waste management service, i.e., 615 kg per person, or just over 1.5 kg of waste per person per day.
