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How long does it take for a cotton piece of clothing to decompose under landfill conditions? I skimmed through the first five pages to my Google Scholar query "cotton degradation decomposition landfill years" and didn't find any information.

Sergey Zolotarev
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Landfill conditions are notoriously anaerobic, so ANYTHING in a landfill will not decompose barely at all. It may take 20-200 years. Fact is, few things decompose in landfills, organic waste anaerobically decomposes producing some methane and not much else.

It's much better to reuse cotton as rags. I use old t-shirts as cleaning rags, then when no longer any good, I wash em one final time then recycle cotton. Better long term strategy is that cotton can be shredded and composted to feed mushrooms. Indoor cultivation of Volvariella volvacea otherwise known as Straw Mushrooms which are edible.

Robotnik
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LazyReader
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