hard · GRE Verbal
In a coastal town, a new ordinance banned single-use plastic bags at all grocery stores. In the year after the ban, the total weight of plastic collected from the town's beaches during monthly cleanups fell by only 4%, even though plastic bags had previously made up nearly a third of that beach litter by count. Officials had expected a far larger reduction in the weight of collected plastic.
Which of the following, if true, best explains why the weight of collected plastic fell so little despite the ban?
- Many residents opposed the bag ban from the outset and continued lobbying the town council for the entire year to have the ordinance repealed.
- Plastic bags, being extremely thin and light, contributed only a tiny fraction of beach litter by weight even though they were numerous by count.
- Neighboring towns that never enacted any such ban reported no measurable change over the same year in the total plastic collected from their own beaches.
- The monthly beach cleanups were run entirely by volunteers, whose turnout rose and fell unpredictably from one month to the next across the year.
- After the ban took effect, grocery stores began selling reusable carrier bags made of noticeably thicker, heavier plastic.
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