#24 - Most disposable plastic containers are now labeled

[Adam Tyson]

I think that's close enough, adlindsey! The lower numbers may be new and unrecycled, or they may have only been recycled a few times, but the point remains the same - refusing to buy the high numbered packages means you are refusing to buy highly recycled products, and that means more stuff will end up in landfills, not less (or it gets into landfills sooner, perhaps). It could also be viewed in a supply and demand way - if demand for highly recycled product packages goes down, supply will go down - we will not recycle as much. That means we would get the opposite effect from what the author intended.

Nice job!

[hfsports429]

Hey Michael,

Thanks for your question, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Answer choice (C) is tricky. According to answer choice (C), virtually every time a plastic container is recycled, its number goes up. If you adopt the author's recommendation to purchase products packaged in containers with lower numbers, you may see some reduction in the amount of unrecycled waste, but only in the short term! Over the long run, these containers will become progressively more difficult to recycle, as their numbers will go up. Eventually, their numbers will be high enough that they will never be recycled. Thus, the preference for plastics with low numbers would only have a temporary effect. Since the conclusion is concerned with making a "long-term reduction in the amount of waste that goes unrecycled," answer choice (C) deals a decisive blow.

Does this help? Let me know.

Thanks!

Hi,

I've been thinking about this question and the explanations about why C is right. Your explanation says "If you adopt the author's recommendation to purchase products packaged in containers with lower numbers.." But the author is not recommending this. The author is merely saying that customers should refuse to purchase those with the highest numbers. I would argue that it's not necessarily a zero sum situation (refusing to purchase higher numbers=suggesting purchasing lower numbers instead). Because of this, I don't really understand the long-term vs. short-term argument.

Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Hey Michael,

Thanks for your question, and sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

Answer choice (C) is tricky. According to answer choice (C), virtually every time a plastic container is recycled, its number goes up. If you adopt the author's recommendation to purchase products packaged in containers with lower numbers, you may see some reduction in the amount of unrecycled waste, but only in the short term! Over the long run, these containers will become progressively more difficult to recycle, as their numbers will go up. Eventually, their numbers will be high enough that they will never be recycled. Thus, the preference for plastics with low numbers would only have a temporary effect. Since the conclusion is concerned with making a "long-term reduction in the amount of waste that goes unrecycled," answer choice (C) deals a decisive blow.

Does this help? Let me know.

Thanks!

Hi,

I've been thinking about this question and the explanations about why C is right. Your explanation says "If you adopt the author's recommendation to purchase products packaged in containers with lower numbers.." But the author is not recommending this. The author is merely saying that customers should refuse to purchase those with the highest numbers. I would argue that it's not necessarily a zero sum situation (refusing to purchase higher numbers=suggesting purchasing lower numbers instead). Because of this, I don't really understand the long-term vs. short-term argument.

Thanks!

Hello hfsports429,

True, the passage does not say per se to buy lower-numbered products--though it may be implied. (If people have to buy something, they often have to buy it in some container or other...) So, your confusion is understandable. If people merely boycott high-numbered products and don't buy more lower-numbered ones, there may not be a short-term benefit.
But, assuming that they do buy lower-numbered ones instead of higher-numbered, what Nikki said above makes sense.

Hope this helps,
David

[gwerner]

Hi,

I understand the proposed argument for why C is correct (short term vs long term reduction), but believe that it is flawed. Any time a container can be used, recycled, and re-used--even just once--would lead to a 50% reduction in waste (1 container used twice instead of 2 containers used once; recycling a container twice would lead to a 66% reduction, etc.) Compounding a 50% reduction of waste for each virgin container would indeed contribute to a long term reduction of waste (of 50%). This means that a degradation in plastic quality does not weaken the argument that you shouldn't buy high numbered plastics, so long as doing so forces retailers to use plastics that can be reused at least once.

The only explanation that I could accept here hinges on the requirement above so that if a low-numbered container is recycled it must become a high-numbered container, after which it will not be reused because consumers refuse to buy it. As a result, it would become waste after only one use, yielding no reduction.

I think this nuanced reading of answer C--that degradation will prevent any reuse of plastic--is a bit of stretch, such that this credited answer does not actually contain a clear element that distinguishes itself from other incorrect answers.

(For the record, I chose answer B, which I agree also does not weaken the argument)

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Gwerner,

The difference that I am getting in your hypothetical Answer (C) is that we change "almost always" to "must." If must would weaken the argument in your view, wouldn't the original phrasing of "almost always" [but in some rare cases not] also weaken the argument to some degree?

[gwerner]

Francis, I think the difference is actually something more substantial. The issue is not that containers almost always vs always degrade when recycled. They could always degrade when recycled, but if you could still reuse them at least once then you remove the waste associated with that use, which I have to conclude is a significant amount (50% reduction with one reuse). I think that for the answer to weaken the argument the degradation would have to result (most of the time) in such a high score that consumers would then refuse to buy it and therefore (most) containers become trash after one use. So long as many containers can be recycled and used as 1->3->5 or even 1->5 before being trashed, and this is compounded by a large enough group of users, then it has reduced waste--I would argue significantly.

The only reason I can think of for why LSAC gives credit to (C) would be that, in the LSAT world, limiting an otherwise unlimited ability to recycle and reuse a container decreases the extent to which you can "significant[ly]" reduce waste. I don't think that decreasing an upper limit of possibility necessarily weakens the conclusion--you can still have a significant reduction without having a maximum reduction--and so It feels as though our job is to tightly parse and argue over the meaning of "significant," which should not be in the scope of the test!

Hi Gwerner,

The difference that I am getting in your hypothetical Answer (C) is that we change "almost always" to "must." If must would weaken the argument in your view, wouldn't the original phrasing of "almost always" [but in some rare cases not] also weaken the argument to some degree?

[Ricky_Hutchens]

Hi gwerner,

I think there is a flaw in your reasoning. Imagine a product initially packaged in a plastic container with a number 6. If we accept C as true, then there is a very strong possibility that recycling it will increase that number. If the boycott calls for not buying anything with a number above 6, then there is no reason for anyone to recycle that container, ever. Because the boycott would make it impossible to sell. That means there would be more trash in the landfills and at least part of that is attributable to the boycott. Those containers might have been recycled if not for the boycott, so therefore, at least in this instance, the boycott has lead to more trash in landfills.

Your argument that a container can be recycled from 1>3>5 or even 1>5 ignores the fact that there is a possibility, even though the question says it is small, to get reuses from 6>9. If the boycott prevents containers from being recycled to that point, it will have increased waste (the used 5 gets thrown out and a new 1 is produced, whereas without the boycott, we could have used 6>9). If we can go from 1>9, then 18 uses only requires 2 containers, but if the boycott reduces our uses to 1-5, we need 4 containers.

[gwerner]

Ricky, I already understood that containers with high numbers (say, 6-9) could not get reused. Your explanation did help me realize my mistake though: I assumed (wrongly) that when we were evaluating the reduction of waste we were comparing to no recycling, in which case any recycling would still be a good plan. In retrospect I should have been comparing against recycling without limitations, in which case losing the ability to recycle a portion of the gradations does indeed inhibit the reduction of waste. Thanks!

Hi gwerner,

I think there is a flaw in your reasoning. Imagine a product initially packaged in a plastic container with a number 6. If we accept C as true, then there is a very strong possibility that recycling it will increase that number. If the boycott calls for not buying anything with a number above 6, then there is no reason for anyone to recycle that container, ever. Because the boycott would make it impossible to sell. That means there would be more trash in the landfills and at least part of that is attributable to the boycott. Those containers might have been recycled if not for the boycott, so therefore, at least in this instance, the boycott has lead to more trash in landfills.

Your argument that a container can be recycled from 1>3>5 or even 1>5 ignores the fact that there is a possibility, even though the question says it is small, to get reuses from 6>9. If the boycott prevents containers from being recycled to that point, it will have increased waste (the used 5 gets thrown out and a new 1 is produced, whereas without the boycott, we could have used 6>9). If we can go from 1>9, then 18 uses only requires 2 containers, but if the boycott reduces our uses to 1-5, we need 4 containers.

[smm]

In response to gwerner's last post, how should we know that we are supposed to evaluate answer choices in comparison to recycling without limitations as opposed to no recycling?

[AthenaDalton]

Hi smm,

You don't necessarily need to use the frame of no recycling / recycling without limitations in evaluating the answer choices.

The conclusion of the argument in the stimulus focuses on reducing the amount of waste that goes unrecycled in the long term by boycotting a particular type of plastic product. Therefore, anything that undermines the validity of that argument can get you where you need to go.

Answer choice (C) tells us that the type of plastic the author proposes boycotting is, in fact, recycled plastic. So if consumers boycott purchasing recycled plastic, eventually manufacturers will catch on and forego selling things in recycled plastic packages, instead using brand-new plastic. This, of course, is the opposite of what the author in the stimulus wants.

I hope that makes sense.

Good luck studying!

Athena Dalton