Waste management companies, which collect waste

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact9% picked this

   Because plastics create harmful pollutants when burned, an increasing percentage of the plastics handled by waste management companies are

   Whether plastics are being increasingly disposed of in landfills rather than incinerated doesn't directly address whether efforts to decrease plastic waste are failing. This change in disposal method doesn't inherently affect the amount of plastic being thrown away.

   9%
2. B

   No Impact23% picked this

   Although many plastics are recyclable, most of the plastics disposed of by waste management

   It seemed more or less implied by the stimulus that disposable plastic means it's not-recyclable. So this seems to be telling us what we already know. It reiterates that these trash companies are dealing with a lot of plastic that needs to be incinerated or put in a landfill.

   23%
3. C

   Irrelevant Comparison11% picked this

   People are more likely to save and reuse plastic containers than containers made of heavier materials

   This is almost in our desired direction, because save and reusing plastic containers would mean we're NOT putting them in the garbage, which is what we want to argue. But this answer has no time dimension to it. It doesn't give us a way to argue that are efforts are working to change things, because it doesn't speak to anything changing.

   11%
4. D

   Correct50% picked this

   An increasing proportion of the paper, glass, and metal cans that waste management companies used to handle

   Why this is right

   Wow, so it WAS a percentage vs. amount type of game they were playing. This answer is telling us there's less non-plastic trash. That means that even if we had the same volume of plastic trash as before, it would now be a higher percentage of trash. It makes the evidence way less compelling because we can't trust that "a higher percentage of plastic trash = there's more plastic trash than before".

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   50%
5. E

   Opposite (if anything)7% picked this

   While the percentage of products using plastic packaging is increasing, the total amount of plastic being

   Since the total amount of plastic being manufactured has remained unchanged, if anything, this answer aligns with the ideas that "efforts to reduce plastic trash have not worked". Ultimately it has no impact because it's about manufacturing, and we really care about disposal.

   7%