Critical Reasoning

From 1978 to 1988, beverage containers accounted for a steadily decreasing percentage of the total weight of household garbage in the United States. The increasingly widespread practice of recycling aluminum and glass was responsible for most of this decline. However, although aluminum recycling was more widely practiced in this period than glass recycling, it was found that the weight of glass bottles in household garbage declined by a greater percentage than the weight of aluminum cans.

Which of the following, if true of the United States in the period 1978 to 1988, most helps to account for the finding?

(A) Glass bottles are significantly heavier than aluminum cans of comparable size.
(B) Recycled aluminum cans were almost all beverage containers, but a significant fraction of the recycled glass bottles had contained products other than beverages.
(C) Manufacturers replaced many glass bottles, but few aluminum cans, with plastic containers.
(D) The total weight of glass bottles purchased by households increased at a slightly faster rate than the total weight of aluminum cans.
(E) In many areas, glass bottles had to be sorted by color of the glass before being recycled, whereas aluminum cans required no sorting.

OA: c

Guys I narrowed to A and C. But was not able to find any reason to rule out A.

Please explain the reasoning.

Thanks.

czarczar wrote:From 1978 to 1988, beverage containers accounted for a steadily decreasing percentage of the total weight of household garbage in the United States. The increasingly widespread practice of recycling aluminum and glass was responsible for most of this decline. However, although aluminum recycling was more widely practiced in this period than glass recycling, it was found that the weight of glass bottles in household garbage declined by a greater percentage than the weight of aluminum cans.

Which of the following, if true of the United States in the period 1978 to 1988, most helps to account for the finding?

(A) Glass bottles are significantly heavier than aluminum cans of comparable size.
(B) Recycled aluminum cans were almost all beverage containers, but a significant fraction of the recycled glass bottles had contained products other than beverages.
(C) Manufacturers replaced many glass bottles, but few aluminum cans, with plastic containers.
(D) The total weight of glass bottles purchased by households increased at a slightly faster rate than the total weight of aluminum cans.
(E) In many areas, glass bottles had to be sorted by color of the glass before being recycled, whereas aluminum cans required no sorting.

OA: c

Guys I narrowed to A and C. But was not able to find any reason to rule out A.

Please explain the reasoning.

Thanks.

for me, A is the trick because passage and option uses similar words to fool us : "weight" of the glass bottles ... and ..."heavier than"
but this does not explain the issue at hand. it does not help solve the paradox. glass bottles are heavier so? is this the reason behind increasingly widespread practice of recycling aluminium but declining percentage of garbage that contains glass? NO...
C solved the paradox. The reason behind this decline is more glass bottles are replaced by plastic containers than does aluminium.

Ozlemg wrote:

czarczar wrote:From 1978 to 1988, beverage containers accounted for a steadily decreasing percentage of the total weight of household garbage in the United States. The increasingly widespread practice of recycling aluminum and glass was responsible for most of this decline. However, although aluminum recycling was more widely practiced in this period than glass recycling, it was found that the weight of glass bottles in household garbage declined by a greater percentage than the weight of aluminum cans.

Which of the following, if true of the United States in the period 1978 to 1988, most helps to account for the finding?

(A) Glass bottles are significantly heavier than aluminum cans of comparable size.
(B) Recycled aluminum cans were almost all beverage containers, but a significant fraction of the recycled glass bottles had contained products other than beverages.
(C) Manufacturers replaced many glass bottles, but few aluminum cans, with plastic containers.
(D) The total weight of glass bottles purchased by households increased at a slightly faster rate than the total weight of aluminum cans.
(E) In many areas, glass bottles had to be sorted by color of the glass before being recycled, whereas aluminum cans required no sorting.

OA: c

Guys I narrowed to A and C. But was not able to find any reason to rule out A.

Please explain the reasoning.

Thanks.

for me, A is the trick because passage and option uses similar words to fool us : "weight" of the glass bottles ... and ..."heavier than"
but this does not explain the issue at hand. it does not help solve the paradox. glass bottles are heavier so? is this the reason behind increasingly widespread practice of recycling aluminium but declining percentage of garbage that contains glass? NO...
C solved the paradox. The reason behind this decline is more glass bottles are replaced by plastic containers than does aluminium.

What I thought on this one was that:

glass bottles weight more then alminum cans. So even though more cans of alminum are not now thrown. The reduction in weight of glass bottles is more because they weight more.

suppose if 10 alminum cans weight equal to 2 glass bottles then even if we remove 8 cans and two bottles the decrease in weight for bottles will be more. And as per me it resolves the paradox.

Hi,

it was found that the weight of glass bottles in household garbage declined by a greater percentage than the weight of aluminum cans.

So, the comparison is not between weights of glass and aluminium cans. It is between the percentage of weights decreased. So, it directly depends on the percentage of cans being replaced and is independent of weight of each can as weights get cancelled when calculating percentage of weight decrease.

Clearly C