How long does it take for an Apple core, a coffee cup or a tire to decompose?

By Samanda Dorger Here are 34 littered items and how long they'll take to break down in the environment. It’s been more than 35 years since beer makers stopped using the pull tabs that littered beaches and cut people’s feet, yet you might still come across one of these cans lying in the woods undergoing its slow process of decomposition. Of the estimated 50 billion pieces of litter on the ground in the U.S., 24 billion are along roadways and 26 billion are along waterways, according to a 2021 litter study by Keep America Beautiful. That’s equivalent to 152 items of litter for each U.S. residen...