Critical Reasoning

Waste management companies, which collect waste for disposal in landfills and incineration plants, report that disposable plastics make up an ever-increasing percentage of the waste they handle. It is clear that attempts to decrease the amount of plastic that people throw away in the garbage are failing.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A] Because plastics create harmful pollutants when burned, an increasing percentage of the plastics handled by waste management companies are being disposed of in landfills.

B] Although many plastics are recyclable, most of the plastics disposed of by waste management companies are not.

C] People are more likely to save and reuse plastic containers than containers made of heavier materials like glass or metal.

D] An increasing proportion of the paper, glass, and metal cans that waste management companies used to handle is now being recycled.

E] While the percentage of products using plastic packaging is increasing, the total amount of plastic being manufactured has remained unchanged.


Kindly help in understanding the question and the answer choices.

IMO C

Let us say the garbage is made up of plastic, x, y and z. The argument says that proportiono of plastic is increasing. The proportional increase can happen in two ways: One is really plastic found is more or because x,y,z is less.
To weaken we need to look for argument that mentions x,y,z, found in garbage is reduced so as even plastic found is same or decreased it can even make up a large proportion.

D does exactly the same, it says glass, paper etc which were earlier part of garbage are now increasingly diverted for recycling and hence it is an correct one.

A: argument is concerned about more uses of plastic and not how it is disposed.
B: Recyclability is not part of argument and hence wrong.
C: Type of container is not part of argument.
E: At the best it says plastics are being used in varios types that hardly bother the argument which is about more uses of plastic.

k...the ans should be D-
If the Percentage( mark the word percentage) Of plastic is increasing in the total waste handled by the waste mgmt companies . This can mean two things-
a) The amount of plastic waste is increasing
b) The amount of waste products other than plastics is decreasing .
for ex if 50 units of plastic was present in a total of 100 units of waste then , plastic percent is 50%; so by condition a cited if plastic goes upto 60 units then there is a PERCENTAGE INCREASE in plastic ; again if waste materials other than plastic goes down to 40 units still the percentage of plastic waste still increases .
So coming back to the question go through options find this logic used you can pin down D as the correct option !

good 1 maihuna

I am still not sure of the answer, IMO is A, As per my understanding waste management is reporting more plastics in the land fill, if an answer can give a reason other than more usage by the people of increasing plastics in the landfills than that should be the weaker, For me A does exactly that.

Can someone please explain..

Thanks

shrivast wrote:I am still not sure of the answer, IMO is A, As per my understanding waste management is reporting more plastics in the land fill, if an answer can give a reason other than more usage by the people of increasing plastics in the landfills than that should be the weaker, For me A does exactly that.

Can someone please explain..

Thanks

The argument is "It is clear that attempts to decrease the amount of plastic that people throw away in the garbage are failing." We are asked to weaken the argument - that is, find a statement that says the attempt is not failing. 'A' states that an increasing percentage of plastics is being disposed of in landfalls. This statement could either support the argument or be neutral, but it certainly doesn't weaken it.

Pretty Straight forward
D.
Earlier= Plastic (40 Tonnes) + Cans etc. (60 Tonnes) (Plastic = 40% of total garbage)
Now = Plastic (40 Tonnes) + cans etc. (40 Tonnes) (Plastic = 50% of total garbage)