A recent national study of the trash discarded in several representative areas confirmed that Support plastics constitute a smaller proportion of all trash than paper products do, whether the trash is measured by weight or by volume. ███ ██████ ████ █ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ █████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ █████ █████████
The author argues that plastic use in a certain nation is actually less harmful to the environment than the use of paper products. This is supported by the claim that a given amount of trash does about the same amount of harm, whether plastic or paper. Additionally, a recent study found that the nation produces more paper trash than plastic trash.
However, notice that the support only addresses the impact of plastic or paper trash, while the conclusion is about environmental harm in general. This means the author assumes the environmental impact of plastic at other stages—for instance, at manufacture—doesn't outweigh the greater impact of paper trash.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ █████████
A given weight ██ █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████████ ███ ██████ █████ █████████ ██ ██████
(A) suggests that a smaller volume of paper might be produced, compared to paper's representation in trash volumes. But that doesn't offer any support to the conclusion that paper is worse for the environment than plastic. Manufacturing a smaller volume might be better, if anything.
According to popular ████████ ██████ ██ █ ████ █████████ █████████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ █ █████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████████████
The argument is the same regardless of whether we consider weight or volume—the author accounts for both. Prioritizing one of these measures over the other doesn't change the level of support.
The sum of ██████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ███ ████████
The argument is about a comparison between paper and plastic, that's all. Bringing in other kinds of trash doesn't help us strengthen the claim that paper is more harmful than plastic.
The production of ███ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ████████
This affirms the author's assumption that the harm of manufacturing plastic doesn't outweigh the harm of throwing away paper. In fact, it goes even further and tells us that manufacturing paper is even worse than manufacturing plastic, which strengthens the conclusion that paper is overall worse.
The proportion of ███████ █████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████
Two issues: first, (E) doesn't say how the proportions vary, so we can't use it to strengthen the claim that paper is worse. Second, the study mentioned used representative samples, so any variance was presumably accounted for. (E) gives us no useful new information.
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